April 16, 2007

Labour

LIUNA ads target CAW members

TORONTO

The 30,000-member Toronto based Local 183 of the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) has publicly appealed to the membership of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) to tell the auto union’s leaders to “back off” from their attempted raid on the construction union.

“We respect your union. Tell your leaders to respect ours,” is the main message in full-page ads placed in three daily newspapers in Southern Ontario, all in regions where significant numbers of CAW members live.

The ads outline the background to the CAW’s support of former Local 183 officers who were removed from office last year.

In February, the CAW advanced one million dollars to the newly-created Canadian Construction Workers Union (CCWU) led by deposed Local 183 Business Manager Tony Dionisio.

The CCWU used the money to hire other former Local 183 officers and staff who began attempts to raid their former union. After two months of effort, they have persuaded only one group of eight Local 183 members to move to their CAW-funded union. Even that certification is on hold as the Ontario Labour Relations Board has only given the CCWU conditional status as a legitimate trade union.

“The Autoworkers’ leadership, especially Buzz Hargrove, have somehow lost their minds,” says Joseph Mancinelli, LIUNA’s Director for Central and Eastern Canada.

“They attacked our union without the slightest provocation or rationale. They allied themselves with people who for years betrayed the trust of their own members in an astonishing number of ways. With all the challenges now facing the CAW in the auto industry, it is incredible that they would spend so much of their members’ money trying to destroy another union in an entirely different industry, one in which they have zero experience.”

“A million CAW dollars and what have they gained? Eight new members, maybe.”

Mancinelli says that three years of independent investigations and hearings, including numerous decisions of Ontario courts and the Labour Relations Board “prove beyond any doubt, except to the willfully blind,” that Dionisio and his ruling circle in Local 183 were guilty of numerous unethical practices that severely violated Canadian trade union values.

“They exploited undocumented workers. Benefits and pension credits were stolen. Union members and staff were covertly spied on. Collective agreements were forged. Millions of dollars were misallocated.

“All of this and more has been proven. We don’t believe rank and file CAW members would agree with Hargrove that their money should go to support such people.”

The ads appeared in the Toronto Sun, St. Catharines Standard and Kitchener-Waterloo’s Record. The Windsor Star originally accepted the ad but on late Wednesday, refused to run it due to its “controversial” nature.

Mancinelli says the union will gauge reaction to the ads from CAW and other union members before deciding on further forays into the public arena.

“We hope Hargrove comes to his senses,” said Mancinelli. “But if he doesn’t, he will see that this is not a one-shot organization. LIUNA has been around for more than a hundred years.

“We know how to defend ourselves.”

CANADIAN PRESS

February 21, 2007

Labour

OLRB slams door on Dionisio

Sealed room to be open to LIUNA

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

TORONTO

The Ontario Labour Relations Board has ordered a sealed room filled with documents of the previous administration of troubled Labourers International Union of North America Local 183 to be opened.

Previous leader Tony Dionisio and loyalist John Dias had sought to prevent their former parent organization from getting access, saying the information in the documents would be used to further persecute them, but OLRB vice chair Norm Jesin ruled otherwise.

“It seems that all the files were administered under the care and control of Local 183 under the previous regime,” he wrote in his decision.

“They continue to belong, in my view, to Local 183. In light of the ruling regarding the other outstanding matter, I see no reason why the Trustee for Local 183 should not have full access to all of the files, and I hereby direct that the Trustee be given such access, and that he be given full control with regard to their use.”

LIUNA in-house counsel Dan Randazzo said the room is at the LIUNA 183 offices on Wilson Ave. in Toronto and was sealed because there was a potential conflict of interest.

“Local 183 was in a legal dispute with the parent union, which is us, and so there were documents that potentially could have created a problem if we had access to them because of that dispute,” said Randazzo, noting LIUNA supported sealing the documents until the dispute ended, which with the OLRB ruling has brought closure. “But what they did is they took all the secretarial computers and probably 60 other files and sealed it in.”

With the order granting access, LIUNA officials will be sorting through the files for other evidence.

“Certainly if we find more breach of rules or criminal code behaviour, we will pursue it,” said Randazzo, adding a LIUNA hearing over the weekend has reserved judgement on expelling Dionisio and his loyalists from the union.

“I have no idea what they’re talking about,” said Dionisio when asked for comment. “I know nothing about it. If I did, I would tell you.”

It was the first of three setbacks to Dionisio and his followers in their action against LIUNA. Jesin also dismissed Dionsio and Dias’ actions at the OLRB to force LIUNA to hold elections and review the firings of managers from the previous administration.

Jesin said in forming a new union, the Canadian Construction Workers Union, and filing an application for status which could constitute a “raid” at the OLRB, Dionisio has no more status in LIUNA.

“Clearly, Messrs. Dionisio and Dias have chosen to cast their lot with a new trade union and do not deny that this new union may ‘raid’ the bargaining units currently held by Local 183. (Indeed, as of this writing, at least one application for such a “raid” may have already been filed.),” Jesin wrote.

“Given the only individuals seeking early elections are the same individuals that have established a new union to compete with LIUNA and Local 183, I see no reason to order elections to take place prior to June 12, 2007 and particularly during the open period, even if the alleged ‘purge’ of staff had taken place.

“It makes no labour relations sense, in my view, to allow Messrs. Dionisio and Dias to use these proceedings to exert and/or regain control over Local 183, while they seek to raid Local 183’s bargaining rights through another union. Nor do I see any reason to consider reinstatement of staff members who have not appeared before me to seek such reinstatement.”

“We’re thrilled,” said Joseph Mancinelli, Canadian general manager of LIUNA. “The OLRB has finally brought some closure to this whole affair.”

Randazzo called it the “final nail in the coffin for Dionisio and company. This is it, the end of the road.”

Dionisio, currently organizing bargaining units for the CCWU, isn’t as thrilled.

“Well, I’m shocked,” said Dionisio. “

In a related court action, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled legal files held by former Local 183 lawyer Brian Shell should be turned over to LIUNA.

Shell argued since the files pertained to work commissioned by the former Local 183 leadership, they should be turned over to Dionisio et al. He was also concerned other, unrelated, clients’ files might be “co-mingled.”

In his ruling, Justice D. Brown held the relationship was between Shell and Local 183 and not Dionisio and the others personally, and that the documents should be turned over forthwith to an intermediate party for photocopying and access to Local 183.

March 12, 2007

Labour

Another door slams on Dionisio

IAN HARVEY

correspondent

TORONTO

Tony Dionisio and seven loyalists have been formally expelled from the Toronto union local he built into a powerhouse.

The announcement that the Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA) had sought and won the right to kick Dionisio and his crew out of the organization comes as no surprise given the bitter history between the man who once led Local 183 and the Hamilton-based Canadian general manager Joseph Mancinelli.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board had also thrown out Dionisio’s pleadings a few weeks earlier, saying he couldn’t continue to press his case as a member of LIUNA while obviously engaged in organizing a rival, the Canadian Construction Workers Union.

At the General Executive Board Canadian Counsel hearing before Barry Stephens, the Canadian Independent Hearing Officer heard evidence that Dionisio, Joao Dias, Luis Torres, Joel Filipe, Victoria Ferreira, Henry Pereira, John Goncalves and Carlos Dionisio, the former business manager’s nephew, were highly visible in their efforts to convince members of LUINA Local 183 to switch allegiances.

Aside from campaigning, some of the men also acted in an official capacity during votes for CCWU, such as scrutineering, the hearing was told.

Tony Dionisio

None of those charged with breaking LIUNA rules attended the hearing, though all were notified. Torres was also accused of failing to appear for questioning by the CEBCC under Article 8(d) of the Canadian Ethical Practices Code.

In the ruling, Stephens accepted evidence based on reports in Daily Commercial News that the Canadian Auto Workers had advanced $1 million in loans to the CCWU for the purposes of recruiting members during the “open season” prior to the expiry of current contracts April 30.

There was also evidence from Seyfi Tomar, a co-ordinator in the low-rise sector for Local 183, that in a conversation with Carlos Dionisio he was told: “We built this union, and we have every right to tear it down.”

“The eight charged members have chosen to form and support a new organization,” wrote Stephens in his ruling. “Having made that choice, they have ‘burned their bridges’, and they cannot now have a reasonable expectation that they will be welcome as LIUNA members at any time in the future. Their actions amount to an irretrievable act of abandonment of LIUNA and the privilege of membership in LIUNA.

“As a result, I do not believe there is any alternative penalty short of revocation of membership that is reasonable, given all of the circumstances.”