A new state bid for ‘Buy American’
STRUGGLE IN THE SHOPS
the March 22 vote.
Then things really got nasty. Tolentino’s lawyer Steven Horowitz dredged up a 2011 sexual harassment complaint against Local 813 President Sean Campbell. Filed by a former union employee, the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and no admission of guilt from either Campbell or the union.
That didn’t stop Horowitz from sending Tolentino an email calling Campbell a “sexual predator.” The lawyer told Tolentino, “Feel free to show this to the employees.”
Tolentino did just that — at least according to the defamation suit that Campbell has since filed against him.
No new date for the Planet Waste election has been set.
Steven Horowitz was another name the Teamsters recognized from its previous run-ins with LIFE 890.
Horowitz was the lawyer of record for several carting companies LIFE 890 had previously tried to raid — including the two companies that had brought in new worker-voters back in 2006.
The origins of LIFE 890 are as murky as some of its alleged election tactics.
In the 1990s, both Mongello Sr. and Jr. held officer positions in Local 445 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), according to federal filings.
The Mongellos devised a plan to break away from LIUNA and get its contracts for their newly formed LIFE 890, with Mongello Jr. leading the charge.
LIUNA fought back, and at the end of a bitter battle, Mongello and his fellow officers were found by the NLRB to have surreptitiously “transferred many contracts and members from Local 445 to LIFE.” The board declared LIUNA to be a “victim of fraudulent concealment.”
In recent years, complaints by LIFE 890 workers in New York City cartage businesses have piled up at the Labor Department.
Two workers have lodged wage-related disputes, one of them saying, “They ignore all my requests for assistance.”
A third has filed a lawsuit saying the company where he worked, Liberty Ashes, was refusing to pay overtime, a violation of federal labor law.
LIFE 890 says it was the shop union at Liberty Ashes when the employee, Carl Orlando, filed his lawsuit. But Orlando denies that, saying he was never told of the union’s existence, didn’t sign any paperwork declaring himself a member and had never even met a LIFE 890 rep.
After Orlando filed his lawsuit, Liberty Ashes and LIFE 890 produced a contract for workers that retroactively added a clause prohibiting its members from suing the company — a codicil that Liberty Ashes is now citing to get Orlando’s suit thrown out of court.
The lawyer for Liberty Ashes is listed as Steven Horowitz. According to court papers filed by the company, he has “handled all aspects of the Local 890 collective bargaining for the last 10 years.”
Neither Horowitz nor Mongello responded to repeated phone calls and detailed emails sent to their offices. Mongello’s secretary, after saying she would forward a message from the Daily News, called back the same day and said he was on vacation. ALBANY — State lawmakers are again looking to make “Buy American” an official policy in New York — but only for certain projects and products.
With just three scheduled days left before the end of the Legislature’s annual session, lawmakers are hopeful of passing a scaled-down version of the “Buy American” plan for state contracting first proposed by Gov. Cuomo (photo inset) in January.
“We are working very hard toward an agreement,” said Sean Hart, a spokesman for Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle (D-Monroe County).
Legislation being considered would cover only road and bridge projects worth more than $1 million and require that state agencies and departments give preference to American-made steel, iron and concrete over similar products from other countries.
In January, Cuomo included in his proposed budget a “Buy American” provision that would have required state agencies to buy from American companies for most purchases of more than $100,000.
That proposal met stiff resistance from upstate lawmakers who represent districts near the Canadian border and from Canadian officials who feared it would harm cross-border economic traffic. Officials from Ontario and Quebec went so far as to hire the powerhouse lobbying firm Bolton-St. Johns to push back against Cuomo’s bill. One of the firm’s partners, Giorgio DeRosa, is then-Cuomo chief of staff Melissa DeRosa’s father.
Hart said the bill, with its scaled-down language, will address those concerns. The new bill also calls for the creation of a “work group” of New York and Canadian officials to help smooth out any difficulties.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said the administration is reviewing the new legislation.
The new effort has the backing of one of New York’s key labor leaders, state AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento.
“We’ve been advocating for ‘Buy American’ for years and feel we are at a place where there is widespread support,” Cilento said.