To: Honorable Richard M.

Berman
US District Court
Southern District of New York Date: February 26, 2011
New York, N.Y. 10007-1312

From: William S. Lebo

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Re: 90 Civ. 5722 (RMB)

Dear Judge Berman,

I am a 25 year member of the carpenters union here in New York City. My local
union is local 45 which, covers Queens. I was a complainant in two cases in regards to
the New York City District Council in 1997and 1998, 97 Civ. 5538 (CSH) and 98 Civ.
1778 (CSH). Both cases had the rights of membership ratification of council officers and
other voting rights at their crux. The fact that we lost our cases was a shame. In the end it
was three carpenters, Joseph Lauer, Jr., John Harkin, and I, fighting the case by ourselves
pro se. against our union General President’s multi-million dollar law firm. Looking
back, I guess we really didn’t have the resources or legalese to win against such odds,
although we were able to get rank and file elections for council officers, and the
trusteeship ended. I can’t begin to tell you how much it saddens me that our union is in
this position, which is almost identical to the position it was in 12 years ago, corrupt
officials, back under a trusteeship, and facing yet another restructuring.
I write you today with some of my concerns in regards to what is happening now
with the supervision of the New York City District Council of Carpenters (NYCDCC)
and its future elections, which are before you under the Consent Decree 90 Civ. 5722
(RMB).
There seem to be several issues that are, or, will be on your judicial plate, if I may.
One will be the scheduling of a series of elections.
Another will be the approval of a set of by-laws, which will prescribe the types of
elections that shall be used to elect delegates to the NYCDCC and then to elect the
executive secretary/ treasurer and other officers of the NYCDCC.
Then yet another will be the changing of the ratio of company employees to local union
employees allowed on jobsites. As of now, there is a Court Ordered ratio dealing with the
percentage of company employees who have been “requested off of the out of work
list” (OWL), company employees that have not been requested, and employees who the
union sends off of the OWL (or local employees). There has been talk of the UBC

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implementing into the contracts they are now negotiating on our behalf, full mobility,
which means the contractors will be able to work on jobsites with no local employees at
all. Dennis Walsh the Review Officer has assured us that since there is a Court Order on
this subject, this issue will have to go before the Court for approval before it can be
implemented.

I wish to address these issues here.

The first is the scheduling of elections.

It has been my experience from our last case in 1997&1998 that the UBC will look to
delay these elections for as long as they can. In a Memorandum, Opinion, and Order from
our case from the Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr. dated February 5, 1999, (I have
attached a copy of this), on page 6, he states;
The UBC makes the perfectly fair point that from May until December, 1997, the
trusteeship’s efforts at achieving reform through implementation of the Restructuring
Plan were delayed by the ultimately unsuccessful litigation strategies of union dissidents,
including these plaintiffs. But that interim period of time does not suffice to avoid the
statutory eighteenth-month presumption of validity, given that the term has now exceeded
that statutory period, even discounting the period from May to December 1997.
I respectfully ask you, your Honor to be alert for such delay excuses, and not to allow
this to go on longer that it has to.

The second issue of concern to me is the amending of the NYCDCC election process.
The UBC’s attorney in the Biello Motion, Mr. Conboy, stated at the hearing you held that
the UBC wanted to have delegates to the Council elect the Council officers. This is
nothing new. The UBC made this same request in 1999. At the time Mr. Conboy himself
was the IRO to the Council. In the same Memorandum, Opinion and Order I previously
spoke of on page 5, Judge Haight speaks of this very issue. He says;

“The most recent submissions of the IRO and the UBC show that those supervising the
District Council trusteeship are now focusing upon the drafting of new by-laws and the
holding of three elections.
As stated in the IRO’s Tenth Interim Report at 3, in September 1998, the UBC submitted
to the IRO and to the government a set of by-laws proposed for use at the District
Council, which “would effect radical changes in the system of elections and governance
used by the District Council.” Id. The Consent decree required at P12 that new District
Council by-laws be submitted to the IRO and the government for their examination, and
possible objections on the ground that the by-laws were inconsistent with the terms and
objectives of the Consent decree. In the event of such an objection, the Court determines
the validity of the proposed by-laws.
In point of fact, the IRO approved the by-laws proposed by the UBC, with one
exception. The proposed by-laws provide for the election of the District Council
executive committee, which includes the executive secretary/treasurer and other officers

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of the Council, by delegates to the Council, following the delegates’ election [*13] by the
rank and file. The IRO takes the position that “the section of the proposed by-laws
providing for the indirect election of the executive committee by the delegates, rather
than by the rank and file, is not consistent with the Consent Decree’s objective of placing
electoral power for the executive officer selection in the hands of the rank and file.” Tenth
Interim Report at 8. The government takes the same position. See letter of AUSA Marla
Alhadeff, dated October 19,1998, at 2.”

It is clear here that, at the time while Mr. Conboy was the IRO, he believed these
indirect elections were a violation of the Consent Decree, as did the government. While
Judge Haight didn’t address this in this Order, he later ordered the executive committee
elections to be held by rank and file vote, and the rest is history, albeit a history of
corruption. The system the UBC put in place is at fault for that history not the
membership. Too much power was placed in the hands of one individual. I said it at the
onset, absolute power corrupts absolutely. As Mike Biello stated at the hearing, a delegate
vote gave our Council Teddy Maritas, Pascal McGuinness, and Fred Devine in his first
term. There unfortunately is no guarantee that any election process will provide an
uncorrupt official. It is however a fact that it is much harder, if not impossible, to control
the vote of thousands of members, than it is to control the vote of a few delegates,
especially if the vote is taken by a mail in ballot, which is what most of us are hoping for.
Our membership has been systematically stripped of our voices in the governance of our
union. I plead with you your Honor don’t allow the UBC to strip us of this last bit of
dignity.

The third issue is the changing of the ratio of company employees, to local employees
at jobsites.
The UBC has implemented “full mobility” in many areas throughout the country. The
difference here is the number of members who work through the OWL and the amount of
corruption we face here in NYC. As it is, in this time of economic instability, the OWL
simply does not move. Members who are not ‘hooked up with a company” and are forced
to place their names on the OWL in order to get work, face an indeterminable amount of
time unemployed. Some members have informed me they have been out of work for as
long as a year and a half. That means they have no health insurance, and most of these
members have had to raid their annuity in order to stay afloat, which means they will be
in further debt to the IRS. I realize these are troubling times but the simple fact is that
even in the best of times the OWL moves painfully slowly. If contractors are allowed to
have only their “company employees” on the jobsite, that means they will not be calling
the OWL for manpower, which means the OWL will come to a complete stop and the
members who are on it will be forced to drop out of the union and work non-union. This
system would be extremely discriminatory to the members who look to the OWL for
jobs. If the UBC would be inclined to place a full mobility clause in any of the contracts
they were negotiating on the membership’s behalf they would be bargaining in “bad

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faith”. Furthermore, this full mobility would surely create more corruption in our union
than there is now. Members who are now “company employees” would be completely
under the contractor’s control because finding other employment from the OWL would
be non-existant. If an unscrupulous contractor were to tell an employee that he wanted
him/her to work a job for cash and no benefits or to keep quiet about non union personnel
on a particular job or to work without a steward on a job or any other combination of
illicit things, that employee would face the choice of taking the high road and turning that
contractor in or facing permanent unemployment on an OWL that doesn’t work. I can tell
you now, when it comes to this point, that employee is going to take into account feeding
his/her family or being out of work permanently. That member has no choice, the union
will no longer have the means to put that person to work anywhere else. Why put a
person in that position. Some people when they pray, they say, lead me not into
temptation but, deliver me from evil. Well, to allow this full mobility, would be leading
this membership directly into temptation, with no possible way to deliver them from evil.

In my opinion, the only remedy for the problem of the stagnation of the OWL is to
bring back the full 50/50 rule. That is, on every jobsite, 50% of the carpenters on the site
would come off of the OWL, and the other 50% the contractor would be allowed to bring
workers from the company, without the request in the mix.

This would accomplish at least two issues.

First it would help to move the OWL, thereby putting the members on it to work.

Secondly, with more “local employees” on a jobsite, the union would have more eyes
on the job to seek out and report corrupt activities. The company employees would have
an excuse not to cheat “for fear” of those eyes. The contractor would also be less inclined
to try to cheat the system, again “for fear” of those eyes. A dishonest steward also would
be less inclined to cheat or allow cheating “for fear” of those eyes. Without local eyes on
a job, corruption again has the ability to run rampant. In the past it has always been the
local eyes that have made the reports that have caught the cheating and the corruption in
our union, why would we remove this asset.

Lastly I want to convey to you the importance of transparency in the Councils

governance. In the past, even after the “restructuring” we went through in 1998, there has
been a distinct lack of information disseminated to the membership, and even to the
delegates in regards to the Councils activities. The membership has not gotten any
information on contract negotiations, corruption, by-law changes, or any other matters of
import until these matters were over and done.

We need a system in place whereby the membership can take part in these matters of
import. A system, whereby the delegates to the council, can bring back to the members of
locals at monthly local union meeting, issues that need to be dealt with. Then the

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membership can debate said issues and vote on them, direct the delegates on how the
membership wants them to vote, or have said delegates ask questions on these issues.

Even now, with the Council in trusteeship everything seems to be a secret. The UBC
has kept the membership in the dark on issues of importance, ie., contract negotiations,
( that we, not they will have to work under), the dissolution of locals, the full mobility
issue, and more.

On February 23, 2011, the R.O. Dennis Walsh held a forum at the District council that
all members were invited to. At this forum Mr. Walsh gave us more information than we
have gotten since the onset of the trusteeship, in fact more than we’ve gotten in the past
12 years. I have to applaud Mr. Walsh for the professional way he handled himself at this
forum, and for the extraordinary job he is doing. It is my opinion that his tenure should be
extended for a long, long period after the Council is placed back into the hands of this
membership. He has proved, at least to me, that, he actually cares about the rights and
well being of the membership of the NYCDCC’s.

Cc: R.O. Dennis Walsh Respectfully submitted,

Government William S. Lebo
Frank Spencer Supervisor NYCDCC

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