Teamsters official files complaint over election

Winning union officers say a challenge is without merit.

By DON SHILLING

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR

YOUNGSTOWN — A Teamsters official who lost an election last week filed a complaint that seeks to have the results overturned.

Bob Bernat, secretary-treasurer of Local 377, filed his request Monday with Teamsters Joint Council 41 in Cleveland.

Ray DePasquale, a business agent who defeated Bernat for the top spot in the union, said the complaint lacks merit.

“He lost the election fair and square,” DePasquale said.

The squabble goes back to this summer when Bernat says he learned that documents that were being sent to him were missing. He said he set up security cameras and found that members of an opposing slate of candidates were taking documents from his office mailbox.

Chris Colello, who was re-elected as local president, and DePasquale said mail from business agents often was put into Bernat’s box, so it wasn’t unusual for them to retrieve mail from there.

Colello and DePasquale said they didn’t take anything that wasn’t theirs.

Bernat filed union charges against Colello and DePasquale in August over the dispute. The Joint Council started a hearing on the charges Thursday and is to take up the matter again Nov. 14.

Gary Tiboni, president of the Joint Council, could not be reached to comment.

Jim Wood, who was running for vice president on Bernat’s slate of candidates, also asked the Joint Council to look into the mail-in election, which ended Friday. Bernat said the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of eligible voters by three.

Colello said he thinks the election results will stand. The results were recounted Sunday under the supervision of Joint Council officials, he said.

The election revealed a split between Colello and Bernat, the union’s top officers. They were elected on the same slate nine years ago and have worked together since.

Colello declined to say why he joined with a new slate in opposing Bernat. It would only hurt the union to make disparaging remarks about another official, he said.

“It’s time to heal the union,” he said.

The entire slate running with Colello and DePasquale, called United Together, was elected. All of them but Colello and DePasquale are new to elected office.

Colello said the vote for the entire slate shows that the membership wanted a change in direction.

The newly elected officers, who are to begin their terms Jan. 1, are focused on unifying the membership and working to protect members’ health care and pensions, Colello said.

The local represents 3,800 members at a variety of employers in Mahoning, Trumbull and Ashtabula counties.

shilling@vindy.com