Teamster trouble brewing at billion-dollar showplace
Con(s)vention center
By Jay Fitzgerald | Monday, June 15, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
The new South Boston convention hall may have been named “Convention Center of the Year” in the United States.
But underneath the gleaming glass-and-steel wonder is a rough-and-tumble cast of characters accused or convicted of murders, bank robberies, assaults, mail fraud, credit-card scams and other crimes - all tied to Boston’s Teamsters Local 82, which provides workers to show sponsors at the publicly owned Boston Convention & Exposition Center in Southie and John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Back Bay.
A review of records by the Herald found that at least two members of Teamsters Local 82 who have criminal records were recently issued special full-floor access passes at the $1 billion Southie center.
The review also found that some ex-cons have been given Teamster jobs at the Southie and Hynes centers soon after serving time in prison for violent crimes.
Among the more controversial Teamsters who have recently worked at convention center shows are:
Richard Geary, 53, a former Boston Housing Authority police officer convicted of fatally shooting former professional boxer Johnny Pretzie outside a South Boston bar in 1988.
Joseph “Jo Jo” Burhoe, 39, of Charlestown, who was recently released from prison after pleading guilty to robbing a Citizens Bank branch in a Shaw’s supermarket in Medford in 2001.
Bernard “Bo” Piscopo, 40, of Dorchester, who is awaiting trial on a charge of second-degree murder for the alleged brutal stabbing of a Revere carpenter at a South Boston saloon two years ago.
The Herald has previously reported that ex-con John “Jackie” Bulger, younger brother of fugitive gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, and Vincent Federico, a convicted killer whose Mafia initiation ceremony was secretly recorded by the FBI, have recently worked as Teamsters in Boston’s convention center halls.
The Herald review shows there are more convicted felons working at the convention centers than them, though an exact figure is difficult to determine.
The Teamsters, some of whom can make well over $100,000 a year, help load and unload trucks with staging, electronics and other gadgets used at center shows. Smaller shows often use only a handful of part-time Teamsters, but larger shows, like the recent International Seafood convention, can employ hundreds of part-time union workers.
Jim Rooney, executive director at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority that runs the two sites, emphasized that Teamster workers are not official employees of the authority and said that they’re hired by outside show-staging companies who have contracts with the union.
Rooney, who has run the South Boston facility since its opening five years ago, said Local 82 has been “quite productive” in making the center a nationally recognized success and that the criminal backgrounds of many Teamsters haven’t spilled over into operations.
While Rooney said there have been no major incidents at the South Boston facility, the center is clearly run on a tight trust-but-verify basis. It has more than 200 security cameras and is installing a new photo-ID security system that Rooney said rivals operations at top casinos. Rooney said the security is aimed at everyone working at the centers.
Teamsters Local 82 has been rocked for years by inter-faction fighting, creating tensions within the union over lucrative, part-time jobs at the centers.
There have been charges and counter-charges of off-site and on-site fights among members of warring union factions, according to court and union documents.
The Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a dissident group within the national Teamsters union, recently accused Local 82 boss John Perry of surrounding himself with a “Boston goon squad.”
Perry, who also heads the International Teamsters’ national trade-show unit, has had a number of grievances filed against him, charging he’s violated union contracts and seniority rules, according to documents, critics and even Perry himself.
David Levine, an organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union, believes Perry wants to make sure that “lucrative trade show jobs go to his pals.”
Perry, who has headed Local 82 since 1986, shot back that the charges against him are “absolutely false” and that he’s confident he’ll be vindicated in the end.
Perry said his critics simply want him out of office.
“This is all political,” said Perry.
As for convicted criminals at his local, Perry admits there are many with troubling pasts and he said he deplores their past acts. “It does make me nervous,” he said, of having some convicted killers and attempted murderers within the union local.
But he said he would never let them work at Local 82 or anywhere if he thought they were dangerous to anyone, emphasizing his union doesn’t have rules precluding people with a criminal past from working in non-leadership Teamster positions.
“We got a lot of guys in trouble,” he said. “What’s wrong with us trying to provide them with jobs?”
Perry said he’s proud of the Teamsters’ work at the centers.
Geary and Burhoe both expressed remorse for their past crimes and said they have spotless work records. The attorney for Piscopo, who had no record before his recent murder charge, said his client is innocent and will be vindicated in court.
Some convention-industry executives, who requested their names not be used, said they have never heard complaints about on-floor incidents during shows.
But one expressed shock when the Herald told him of workers tied to murder, attempted murder and other violent crimes.
He expressed concern that the situation might begin to resemble past controversies surrounding Boston’s Teamsters Local 25, once accused of nearly ruining the movie industry in Massachusetts because of the antics of some of its ex-con members.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1178998
0 comments:
Post a Comment