The Laundry & Dry Cleaners Union Local 168-39 in Buffalo recently cut the $30,000 pension paid to ex-boss Anna May Ervolino, who with her husband, Frank Ervolino, is accused by the federal monitor of the Hotel Employee & Restaurant Employee Int’l Union of over-paying herself in a variety of jobs at two other Buffalo unions. LDCU boss Edward Skibinski said that the union’s pension fund cut its payment by about $20,000 to Ervolino.
Until Oct. 1996, Ervolino was first vice-president of Local 168-39 and a trustee of its pension and health funds. In a letter to Ervolino, the pension fund puts the amount of overpayments to her at $87,000 and seeks immediate repayment. Failing that, the fund will reduce payments to $10,000 a year, from $30,000.
In Jan. 1999, federal monitor Kurt W. Muellenberg said the Ervolinos embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from two other unions under their control, HERE Local 4 and the AFL-CIO Hospital & Nursing Home Council. LDCU wasn’t within the scope of his investigation. Muellenberg’s decision barred the Ervolinos from returning to union jobs but lacked authority to reduce their allegedly inflated pension payments. [Buffalo News 6/25/99]