Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union long had been a fiefdom of New York’s Genovese crime family. At least three top officers had to resign over various federal criminal allegations. Now a new report is providing even more powerful evidence of a close working relationship between the Mob and the union. On September 6, dissident local members held a news conference to release the contents of a report prepared by an independent counsel in January, concluding that “organized crime, with the full knowledge of certain local and even international officials, had infiltrated and controlled” the Queens, N.Y.-based 15,000-member school bus drivers’ union.
The independent counsel, Richard W. Mark, called upon the parent ATU to bring internal charges against former Local 1181 President Salvatore Battaglia and former Secretary-Treasurer Julius Bernstein, and to conduct a further probe. Battaglia is facing a federal trial, having been indicted in 2005 for racketeering … Read More ➡
Members of Local 1181 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) want some answers about where their money is going. That’s understandable given the caliber of people running the show. The president of the 15,000-member Queens, N.Y. school bus drivers’ local, Salvatore Battaglia, is facing federal charges of obstruction of justice, having been accused of conspiring with members of New York’s Genovese crime family. He’s still in office. The union’s secretary-treasurer, Julius Bernstein, was forced by prosecutors to step down from his post in June; he’s due for sentencing late next month for racketeering. And its pension fund director, Ann Chiarovano, despite pleading guilty in August to obstruction of justice, remains at her job because she is technically not a union officer. Something is amiss here.