Teamsters union trustee plans on fixing ‘sick’ local

By Don Shilling

YOUNGSTOWN — Charlie Byrnes sees himself as a doctor of sorts who is prescribing some tough medicine for Teamsters Local 377.

“This local is sick and needs to be fixed,” said Byrnes, a Pittsburgh union official who was named trustee of the Youngstown-based local, which represents about 3,700 workers in four counties.

In December, a Teamsters panel threw out the results of an October election and suspended men who won the top two posts. In February, Byrnes was appointed to restore order to a local that he said had been plagued with political fights for more than two years.

He said the leadership feud had become so bad that the local’s business agents had been filing grievances only for those members who are on “their side.”

“It was all about egos and the desire for power and authority,” Byrnes said.

He has installed new policies on how members will be represented, installed procedures to control expenses, filed a police report over missing computers and instructed business agents to do a better job representing members.

“The only reason for unions is to protect the guy who’s paying the bill. When business agents lose sight of that fact, you end up with a local in trusteeship,” Byrnes said.

His first goal — establishing new procedures — is on its way to being accomplished, he said. Several new policies have been adopted and will be monitored by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to make sure they are not weakened over time, he said.

“If they take away any of these policies, I’ll be back,” he said.

His second goal — restoring the trust of members — is much harder, he said. Business agents will have to show that they care about the members, instead of focusing on their own political future within the union, he said.

In the past, leadership has not provided adequate training for shop stewards at area companies because business agents have been concerned that shop stewards would run against them, Byrnes said. He has started training sessions each month before general membership meetings.

Byrnes, who was appointed in February, said he expects the trusteeship to last between eight and 12 months. Before he leaves, an election will be held.

In the past, the local has elected six business agents, including the president and secretary-treasurer, who was the top official in the union.

Byrnes said he will recommend the local have only five business agents, in order to cut expenses. The local has $180,000 in savings but should have more than $250,000 in order to pay for arbitration expenses and building maintenance, he said. A smaller fund makes the local seem weak to companies in negotiations, he said.

While the election results from October were thrown out, Byrnes has retained four business agents who won those positions. All of them are new to the job and are being trained on negotiations, arbitration and grievances, he said.

The agents are expected to be at job sites more frequently, he said.

A police report was filed over two laptop computers and two printers that are missing. Byrnes said business agents are provided computers and printers but record-keeping was not good enough in the past to trace the missing equipment.

Byrnes is secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 926 in Pittsburgh and is overseeing both locals. This is the third time he has been appointed a trustee for a local in trouble. He is being assisted in Youngstown by Doug Norris, an international representative..

The Local 377 officials who were suspended were Ray DePasquale, who defeated Bob Bernat for secretary-treasurer, and Chris Colello, who was re-elected president.

Union charges against DePasquale said he handed out phony cards for safety certification, called a strike without proper approval, improperly removed a membership roster from the union hall and improperly shredded or removed a variety of other documents. Charges against Colello involved the strike and the membership roster.

shilling@vindy.com