By Douglas Feiden Staff Writer, New York Daily News
The union powerhouse that represents some of the poorest workers in New York City shelled out more than $2 million on parties and out-of-town conferences last year, the Daily News has learned.
Local 1199, whose members empty bedpans and scrub toilets in hospitals and nursing homes, spent $465,000 for a summer retreat to Lake Placid for 700 staffers.
Its tab at the pricey Firebird Russian Restaurant on W. 46th St. hit $9,247. And a five-day getaway at a resort in Westchester County favored by Fortune 500 titans topped $300,000.
America's most muscular health care union is legendary for wielding its political clout in Albany and City Hall to deliver cradle-to-grave benefits for its 300,000 members.
But the local also knows how to throw a good party, savor a nice meal and run up a hotel bill, according to filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. The News reviewed all union expenditures of $5,000 or more from last year.
"To be very honest, not only are we good in politics, but nobody throws a party like we do," said Dennis Rivera, the local's president since 1989.
They don't come cheap: Union brass forked over $280,000 in members' dues to the Club Copacabana on W. 34th St. for its annual delegates holiday party last December.
To handle the entertainment - reggae, merengue, salsa, rock and R&B bands performing 45-minute sets on three levels - a stage manager, Zambrana Productions, was hired for $89,843.
Meanwhile, up to 500 delegates from Boston, Baltimore and Buffalo hopped on buses, planes and trains to get to the party, staying overnight at three midtown hotels - and bringing the bill for the bash close to $500,000.
That's typical: The year before, at the Sheraton New York, the holiday blast came in at $468,212.
Nearly 4,000 rank-and-file delegates attended - hospital orderlies, cafeteria helpers, home care workers. But lack of space meant the people they represent, the average Local 1199 members, couldn't go.
Admission is based on performance, and even delegates have to earn their way in, said Secretary-Treasurer George Gresham, the local's No. 2 executive.
"We have a point system, like an airline frequent-flier program, and you don't attend unless you're involved in at least 20 union activities over the year," Gresham said.
Added Rivera: "It's a way to thank our activists who sacrifice and give their time to build the union. What price do you put on that?"
But critics charge it's wrong to tap members' dues to pay for bands, booze, buses and deejays because the money comes from low-wage, unskilled workers making as little as $6.75 an hour, the state minimum wage.
Union members - mostly women, immigrants and minorities - contribute an average of $500 in annual dues, which added up to $110 million last year.
"Partying at the Copa while your members clean bedpans and foot a bill they can't afford is outrageous," said Rick Berman, executive director of the Center for Union Facts, a business-funded group that monitors labor spending.
"So is spending half a million dollars of members' money to go to Lake Placid to have a conversation," he added.
Amid the splendor of the Adirondacks, nearly 700 of the local's 758-member staff checked into two resort hotels with lake and mountain views for a four-day retreat in Lake Placid in July 2005.
Meetings began at 8:30 a.m. Strategy sessions mapped the union's expansion plans. They were intense and lasted for hours. Then came the fun part - team-building exercises.
Staffers raced "war canoes," rode mountain bikes, tromped through the woods on group hikes, conducted a scavenger hunt to find items related to the Olympics - and celebrated with another blowout party.
Veteran labor negotiator Bruce McIver, president of the League of Voluntary Hospitals, saw nothing amiss in the expenditure. "I've seen a lot more extravagances in other unions, and I've been negotiating with them for 15 years."
The hoopla in Lake Placid didn't deter the local from one of its prime missions - helping the poor. In one exercise, staffers, working in teams of five, assembled 100 bicycles and presented them as gifts to needy upstate kids.
"The pleasure and the joy of those kids brought tears to our eyes," Rivera said.
"And when we left, people were so proud, and they went back energized and charged to go and build the union against all the enemies who want to kill us out there. In that sense, I would say it was money well-spent."
In an interview lasting nearly three hours in his W. 43rd St. office, Rivera, surrounded by five top lieutenants, said such events build camaraderie and produce action plans to achieve union goals.
Clearly, something is working: Local 1199 members enjoy free health care benefits, fully funded pension plans, college scholarships, life insurance, job guarantees and child-care and home-loan programs.
And the union has grown under Rivera's stewardship - at a time most are shrinking. Thanks to 14 mergers in the past 17 years, membership rolls soared to 300,000 from 75,000 in 1989 and the budget grew to $135 million from $14 million.
Some modest entertainment spending on buckwheat blinis and sturgeon can fuel those gains.
When Rivera was courting a nurses union in Maryland, he took some 50 union reps to a $9,247 dinner at the Firebird on Restaurant Row. The union later agreed to merge, and Local 1199 gained 1,000 new dues-paying members.
Celebrating mergers and other triumphs with the occasional party can spur future success, officials argue.
That's why the local spent $44,857 for a shindig at Pier 60 on the Chelsea Piers last year. The union had just restored $1 billion in Medicaid cuts and wanted to mark the victory.
It's also why the union hired five entertainment companies at the Boston Convention Center and ran up a $183,038 tab, including $73,150 for food. The union had picked up 12,000 members by merging with two Boston locals, and it was party time again.
"We took the Fung Wah bus to cut costs," said Jennifer Cunningham, 1199's political director, referring to the $15 Chinatown-to-Chinatown run.
The union has a grander plan to get control of expenses, which included $889,200 at the Hilton and $346,288 at the Crowne Plaza last year because it lacks space of its own to hold mass meetings.
It quietly hired real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield to sell its headquarters building at 310 W. 43rd St. for development, which could reap a windfall.
One scenario calls for demolishing the 16-story structure and replacing it with a mixed-use, retail, commercial and condo complex, Rivera said.
Local 1199 would get a modern new home at the site - complete with a 3,000-seat auditorium and a 5,000-square-foot conference center - and it could save the millions it now spends to rent hotel ballrooms.
"We're going to keep doing what we're doing, and we're going to keep being successful," Rivera said. "Why should we change a formula that is working?"
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/455382p-383105c.html
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm