Demian D.

Schroeder
14 Meadow Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206
March 15,2013
Honorable Richard M. Berma
United States District Judge
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
United States Courthouse
500 Pearl Street
New York, NY 10007-1312
Subject: US. v. District Cou ood of
Carpenters & Joiners ofAmerica, et al., Index No. 90 Civ. 5722 (RMB)
Reference: February 13, 2013 Order, Doc. No. 1255
Responsive Filings, Status of Union approval and ratification ofthe District
CouncillWall-Ceiling CBA dated March 12, 2013
Dear Judge Bennan:
We are in receipt of the Wall-Ceiling and Carpentry Industries of New York, Inc. (WC&C)
collective bargaining agreement (CBA) dated/executed on March 12,2012.
As Your Honor is aware, the contracts are complex legal documents effecting members rights.
The executed contract (CBA) was not properly or timely submitted to the Council Delegate Body
(CDB) nor Executive Committee nor rank-and-file member, for proper dissemination, review,
debate or contract ratification, per the past practice under the new by-laws as established by the
Council Delegate Body (CDB) and the follow-through March 27,2012, vote by the rank & file,
on 5-CBA's which were supervised & counted by the American Arbitration Association (AAA.)
We respectfully request 20-days of additional time through Thursday April 4, 2013, for proper
review and vetting of this contract and to relay our concerns to the Court. In the intervening
period, we have Sf. Patrick's Day & Eastern Orthodox Lent occurring on the 18
1h
ofthis month
and Palm Sunday, Passover, Good Friday and Easter occurring on the 241h, 25
1h
, 29
th
and 31 st
respectively. The next regularly scheduled Council Delegate Meeting will be on Wednesday
April 3, 2013.
We remind this Honorable Court that the International (UBCJA) and the District Council and
Wall-Ceiling (WC&C) have tried to force the contracts through without proper time for any
competent review once before, immediately prior to the ending of the UBCJA's Trusteeship on
January 12,2012, and we have enclosed pages 44-51 of the December 20, 2011. court transcripts
for Your Honor's consideration in this matter.
CHAMBERS OF
HARD M. BERMAN
U.S.D.J.
Respectfully submitted,

6emian D. Schroeder
USDCSDNY
DOCUMENT
ELECTRONITCALLYFILED
DOC#:_-----
DATE FILED: 0'; {\
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cc: BY E-MAIL
Robert F. Makowski
21-32 Crescent Street, Apt. C6
Astoria, NY 11105
Sterling Dadone
39-19 167
th
Street, Apt. 5C
Flushing, NY 11358-2103
Nonnan Saul
1637 Saint Peters Avenue
Bronx, NY 10461-3008
Raynier Gamboa
4308 Smith Ave.
North Bergen, NJ 07047
Veronica Session
123 E39th Street PVT House
Brooklyn, NY 11203
Dennis M. Walsh, Esq., Review Officer
The Law Office of Dennis M. Walsh
415 Madison Avenue, 11TH Floor
New York, NY 10017
Bridget M. Rhode
Counsel to the Review Officer
Mintz, Levitz, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, P.C.
666 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Benjamin H. Torrance
Assistant United States Attorney, Civil Division
Office of the United States Attorney, SDNY
86 Chamber Street
New York, NY 10007
MarkA. Rosen, Esq.
Counsel for the Association of Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries of New York Inc.
McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney, & Carpenter, LLP
1300 Mount Kemble Avenue
Morristown, NJ 07962-2075
John DeLollis
Executive Director
Association of Wall-Ceiling & Carpentry Industries of New York, Inc.
125 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 301
Jericho, NY 11753-1022
Case 1:90-cv-05722-RMB-THK Document 1276 Filed 03/18/13 Page 2 of 8
James M. Murphy
Spivak-Lipton, LLP
1700 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
New York City & Vicinity District Council of Carpenters
Executive Secretary-Treasurer Michael Bilello
395 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Case 1:90-cv-05722-RMB-THK Document 1276 Filed 03/18/13 Page 3 of 8
DECEMBER 20, 2011 COURT TRANSCRIPTS, page 44-51
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1 still have my three blue cards that I was sent and I refuse to
2 sign these because I knew right away they were a form of
3 extortion and they could take whatever they wanted from us at
4 any time.
5 So, I just wanted to update you on that. Thank you.
6 TIlE COURT: Thanks.
7 Before we hear from the next speaker, why does this
8 January 5 date need to be set in stone? If I remember
9 correctly, Judge Conboy, originally you had thought that the
10 agreements were going to be posted earlier than they in fact
11 were. I think you had originally thought around November 18.
12 So, that would have given people more time to review and study
13 them and so -- and it is also true that there can, at the
14 earliest, be a town hall discussion and meeting about these
15 agreements, those three or however many have been signed so
16 far, until at the earliest next week. And then you have
17 Christmas holidays are coming up and then you have the New Year
18 holidays. It does seem that January 5 is awfully close in
19 terms of what, I imagine, is the complexity of these agreements
20 to review them.
21 MR.. CONBOY: Judge, I just want to make two points.
22 First of all, the trustee who negotiated these contracts has
23 now a legal obligation with these contractor associations to
24 carry through and seek approval on what has been an
25 extraordinarily challenging and difficult process.
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1 TIlE COURT: Nobody is suggesting anything contrary to
2 that.
3 MR.. CONBOY: Well, let me just try to speak further to
4 it.
5 TIlE COURT: Right.
6 MR.. CONBOY: The second point is that the
7 international president made the initial proposal to the United
8 States Attorney, to Mr. Walsh, and ultimately to you that these
9 collective bargaining agreements should focus on and achieve a
10 radical and crucial reform in terms of any corruption problems.
11 We have heard a great deal on the consent decree this morning
12 and what these years of oversight have meant and the key
13 language in the undertaking to bring full mobility to a
14 successful conclusion was the phrase good faith negotiations.
15 Judge Haight made it very clear in terms of his order that all
16 he was expecting was a good faith effort to achieve the reforms
17 that, in our view, are the single most important issue to the
18 rank and file and that issue is that these benefit funds be
19 protected going forward against disaster that occurred under
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20 Michael Ford.
21 Now, these delegates are elected delegates. Whether
22 or not they have an obligation to respond to their constituents
23 and have their constituents rigidly control their vote, that's
24 an issue that will be resolved by the delegates themselves.
25 These contracts are finished, we have full expectation that
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1 there are going to be three additional contracts posted by the
2 end of the week, there is going to be a comprehensive effort
3 made that everybody should understand the substance of these
4 agreements. If there is an inadequate basis of knowledge those
5 delegates for whom the District Council and the trustee have
6 immense respect, they can decide completed CBAs whether or not
7 they should be ratified now and not punted into some kind of
8 amorphous political process. None of us can see the end of
9 that.
10 THE COURT: Well, that's not what I had in mind. I'm
11 just thinking that you are talking about a vote on January 5
12 just as an observer -- on agreements some of which are not
13 ratified or concluded at this point and you're talking about
14 two holidays in between. It is kind of hard to imagine doing
15 anything in that short time frame. I'm just not hearing from
16 you -- I agree with everything you said philosophically, but I
17 don't know why January 5th, in and of itself, must be the date.
18 MR. CONBOY: Well, Judge
19 THE COURT: Hold on a second. That you have been at
20 these agreements now as long as I have been here and they keep
21 taking longer and longer because they're complex and important
22 documents so one would be hard pressed, if you were a stranger
23 to this proceeding and you were just called in today and I said
24 to you, Mr. Conboy, would you, by January 5th, give me your
25 opinion as to these agreements, just wondering why it has to be
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1 January 5, and particularly since the majority of these
2 agreements are not yet executed.
3 MR. CONBOY: Well
4 THE COURT: As opposed to January 25 or 15 or some
5 other time that people might have more opportunity to study
6 them.
7 MR. CONBOY: Your Honor, I firmly believe that if
8 there is an inadequate basis on which to vote on the 5th of
9 January these delegates will express their view. I will point
10 out that the delegates have been consistently part of the
11 process in negotiating these agreements. If the Court would
12 intervene
______:1
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13 TIlE COURT: I'm not intervening. I'm giving you an
14 observation which seems -- by the way -- to be common sense.
15 MR. CONBOY: Well, Judge
16 TIlE COURT: It doesn't seem to be anything legal. I'm
17 thinking today is, you know, the week before the Chrisunas
18 holiday and then next week is the week before the New Year's
19 holiday and you're telling me that five agreements are not even
20 executed and they will be posted when they're executed and then
21 they'll be voted on by January 5 and it does seem like a
22 stretch, frankly, in a common sense way -- not in a
23 philosophical way, not in a legal way, just in a common sense
24 way. And I promise you that most lawyers sitting in this room,
25 if they faced a deadline like that, would likely write me a
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1lener and say: Judge, can we have two more weeks?
2 [Applause]
3 TIlE COURT: Hold it, will you?
4 MR. CONBOY: Judge. may I respectfully remind the
5 Court that everybody at these tables agreed that two weeks to
6 review these documents and consult with the clients was
7 adequate? This is
8 TIlE COURT: Some of the documents are not done yet.
9 MR. CONBOY: Judge, there are not going to be any
10 voting on anything that has not been posted for the two weeks
11 that were agreed to by the Court and by everybody else. These
12 negotiators have included very difficult negotiations that have
13 taken months and I do think that closure on that effort,
14 consistent with Judge Haight's order is essential, and that if
15 the delegates themselves do not feel suitably infonned, they
16 can table it. That's what we understand.
17 So, I just want to reiterate that it is the position
18 of the trustee that the immensely difficult work of all of the
19 these months that it be allowed to come to a conclusion on the
20 5th of January with the understanding, obviously, that these
21 delegates who are empowered under the constitution and, indeed,
22 all of the assumptions that we have made in the course of
23 trying to come positively to the end of this trusteeship, that
24 they have the chance to vote on the 5th, they will have the
25 language in these documents available for two weeks, they will
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1 have had the chance to consult, there will be as, Mr. Walsh
2 suggested, a town hall. Let us see what occurs on the 5th of
3 January.
4 TIlE COURT: All I would say to you is that I would
5 like you to go back over your notes and the transcripts of
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6 these proceedings as to dates that you indicated earlier when
7 all these documents would be -- you didn't know for sure but
8 you estimated would be executed and posted and they were long
9 before two weeks before January 5. All I'm saying is -- well,
10 you get what I'm saying.
11 So, the last time I think you said that all the
12 agreements would be posted by the 18th of November, today is
13 about a month later than that and three have and five haven't.
14 So, you know, draw whatever conclusions you want to draw from
15 that but it just seems to me that January 5 seems to be a close
16 call.
17 Mr. Walsh, do you have any thoughts on that?
18 MR. WALSH: One point that hasn't been mentioned is
19 the expectation of the employers.
20 THE COURT: I'm sure.
21 MR. WALSH: That the a&reements would be considered
22 during the supervisor's tenure.
23 I think Mr. Conboy has frankly made a good point that
24 if it is the delegates' pleasure the UBC will not object and
25 the supervisor will not object and intercede if the delegates
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1 vote on the 5th to table this and consider all of the CBAs
2 three weeks afterwards or a month afterwards.
3 MR. FRANCO: I just want to continue.
4 As far as I know, based upon last night's meeting,
5 Local 157 meeting, the many delegates did not know that January
6 5th they were going to be meeting for the contracts. That was
7 my understanding last night. So, as far as I know -- Bill, you
8 didn't know until last night and Bill is the recently elected
9 president.
10 MR. LEBO: Yesterday
11 THE COURT: Let's hear from him and move this along.
12 MR. FRANCO: I just want to finish up with the
13 contract. Why is the International trying to get these
14 contracts done before our new officers and full mobility seem
15 to be the big thing or one of the big things for them? That
16 violates my sensibility and many members' sensibility because
17 full mobility further converts our labor organization into an
18 employment agency and I'm absolutely against that.
19 Thank you.
20 MR. FORREST: Your Honor, Loren Forrest for the
21 Building Contractors' Association.
22 Just following along on Mr. Walsh's point, he is
23 right, the Employers' Association, my client in particular, the
24 Building Contractors' Association, expected that the contracts
25 would be voted on on January 5th and, as Mr. Conboy said, those
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1 are expectations are based on good faith negotiations and based
2 on agreement.
3 THE COURT: Counsel, you know this is a very simple
4 issue and I get it and I don't think you are hearing me. I'm
5 understanding exactly what you said but I'm saying to you, as a
6 lawyer, that the January 5 date is awfully close now for
7 anybody to give their full consideration to these contracts
8 when you know, as well as everybody else at the table that you
9 are sitting at, that five of the eight of them are not even
10 executed.
11 So, and if you know. also. as an experienced lawyer,
12 that if you had a deadline like January 5 and you weren't ready
13 or you had another court appearance or you hadn't reviewed the
14 documents. you might say to somebody like me, Judge. can we
15 have another week or two so that we can study these complex
16 documents?
17 Nobody is in any way trying to harm the employers or
18 the people who negotiated, etc. It took longer than, frankly,
19 I was told that it was likely to take. And so, all some people
20 are saying, myself included, is that they ought to be reviewed
21 and voted on on a date that you can be sure that people have
22 had a chance to study them.
23 That's all I'm saying.
24 MR.. LEBO: Your Honor, in reference to the contracts,
25 it almost seems to me that they're assuming that these
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