

The power of organized labor is on display in the marble Rhode Island State House hallways most afternoons. While union membership is at its lowest level in 50 years, labor leaders’ daily contact with lawmakers is as strong as ever. Most days on Smith Hill, union lobbyists far outnumber those from other interest groups.
“In fairness to labor, they’re up here every single day, talking to people,” says Senate Finance Committee Chairman Stephen D. Alves. “You don’t see the Chamber [of Commerce] people here every single day. Do [unions] have more access? I suppose they do - only because they’re here. They catch you in the corridor. If business people were up here and want to talk to us, they’re more than welcome to.”
But there are a handful of paid union employees who don’t need to register as lobbyists to exert their influence. They are elected members of the General Assembly.
Four senators - Frank A. Ciccone III, Paul E. Moura, Dominick J. Ruggerio and John J. Tassoni Jr. - and two representatives - Steven F. Smith and Anastasia Williams - either directly make their living by working for labor unions, serve on the boards of major labor organizations, or both.
Three of the four senators serve on the Senate Labor Committee and three sit on the powerful Senate Finance Committee. Both representatives serve on the House Committee on Labor. All six regularly vote on legislation that affects union members.
But there is no inherent legal conflict, according to the state Ethics Commission.
State law prohibits lawmakers from voting or influencing legislation that directly benefits themselves or their families. But a provision in the state Ethics Code — dubbed the “class exception” - creates a broad exception to state law that Governor Carcieri and a chorus of others say “undermines public trust.”
Legislators who work for unions may vote on labor-related bills as long as the benefit is extended equally to other unions, the entire “class.” The same goes for lawyers, teachers, insurance agents and fire-alarm salespeople who regularly vote on laws that affect their industries.
The discussion strikes at the heart of the debate over public corruption in Rhode Island’s part-time legislature, which meets at least three afternoons a week for six months. Most members earn $13,508 a year, forcing the vast majority to make money elsewhere to help pay the bills.
Ciccone, for example, earned $151,558.20 last year in salary and benefits for working as a field representative for the Rhode Island Laborers District Council and another $22,944 for his role of business manager for Local 808, which represents court employees.
Ciccone was not the best paid of the union-employee legislators. Senate Majority Whip Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence, earned $181,041 in salary and benefits as the administrator of an arm of the Laborers International Union known as the New England Laborers Employers Cooperation and Education Trust.
Meanwhile, Moura received $107,323 in pay and benefits from the New England Laborers Health & Safety Fund. He also sits on the board of the AFL-CIO, which lists his State House office phone number as contact information on its Web site.
And Tassoni took home $92,606 last year for his work as a business agent for the largest state employees union, Council 94, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Both Smith and Williams serve as unpaid members of the AFL-CIO’s board of directors. Smith is the president of the Providence teachers union, while Williams is the president of the Rhode Island chapter of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.
“I have to have a job. You can’t live on $13,000 a year,” Tassoni said. “It’s unfortunate that people think that labor is the evil of all evils … I got a good job. I like what I do. I like helping people. It’s right up my alley. It is what it is. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a bad guy.”
REP. JOSEPH TRILLO, the outspoken Warwick Republican, doesn’t believe that individual union members are bad people.
But he says that working together, they have “a stranglehold” on the General Assembly.
“They are organized. They are vicious. They are mean. They are threatening. That’s the way they operate. And I’m sorry if I insult them. I’m insulting them as a group. One on one, they’re great,” he told the Ethics Commission last week during a public hearing on the class exception.
Despite hosting the hearing, it’s unclear whether the Ethics Commission may tackle the issue.
It cannot repeal existing law, but has the power to enact regulations that may clarify, redefine or interpret the current law.
Trillo begged the commissioners to weigh in: “This problem is so severe right now, that you are the last hope for this state,” he said.
He acknowledges that just a handful of Assembly members work directly for unions. While he estimates that between 25 and 30 percent belong to unions or have spouses that do, he could not provide data to support his figure.
Trillo said that the class exception should not apply to any group perceived to be as powerful as organized labor.
Ethics Commission board member Ross E. Cheit, a Brown University professor, wasn’t convinced that one group should be singled out.
“I’m worried about equating better-organized with unethical,” he told Trillo. “What you’re really saying is that the unions are really well-organized and that somehow nobody has figured out how to counter that. It seems to me that if there’s so much to counter, other people should get organized.”
Further, Cheit asked about Trillo’s personal circumstances.
Trillo owns a fire-alarm company, but helped draft legislation to revise the state fire code. The revisions would directly affect companies, such as Trillo’s, that supply fire safety equipment.
But because of the class exception that he wants changed, Trillo did not violate the state’s Code of Ethics because the legislation affected all fire alarm companies equally.
“Do you think you have the kind of conflict that we should worry about?” Cheit asked Trillo.
“Absolutely not, I’m one contractor,” Trillo responded.
“Right. That’s why the class exception applied to you,” Cheit said.
The governor’s office believes that the current law must be changed.
“Despite the clear constitutional and statutory intent to hold public officials to the ‘highest standards of ethical conduct,’ the class exception shields activity that would otherwise be considered unethical. Members of the General Assembly regularly introduce and vote on legislation that would directly benefit the financial interests of themselves and their private employers. This loophole should be closed,” reads a recent letter submitted to the Ethics Commission by Carcieri’s executive counsel Kernan F. King.
RHODE ISLAND’S class exception debate is not unique.
The majority of states allow public officials, at the state or local level, to vote on proposals in which they have a perceived conflict.
A study released by the Ethics Commission notes that 35 states, including Rhode Island, have exceptions in their conflict-of-interest laws that apply to the “class” issue. Each is written, interpreted and enforced differently, however. The Ethics Commission, which surveyed several states, found that most consider the issue on a case-by-case basis.
That’s generally been the practice in Rhode Island.
For example, in recent months the commission investigated a complaint that Ciccone broke state law by voting for legislation that would benefit the union he worked for.
The bill, which was passed by the Senate but died in the House, would have saved public employee unions money by shifting from the unions to the state some of the cost of mediating labor disputes. The legislation would have affected nine bargaining units that Ciccone represents, the commission staff found.
But the Ethics Commission dismissed the complaint, ruling he was protected by the class exception because the legislation would have affected more than 100 other bargaining units no differently than the ones Ciccone is involved with.
The Ethics Commission, however, found that Ciccone violated state law by failing to report his union employment on ethics filings in 2005 and 2006. Ciccone argued that his work for organized labor was common knowledge (It was printed in the secretary of state’s annual “Rhode Island Government’s Owner’s Manual”), but the Ethics Commission in late March fined him $1,500.
The commission has no choice but to enforce the current law as written, according to Jason Grammitt, a lawyer with the Ethics Commission.
“If you’re going to punish someone for unethical behavior, due process requires that you can’t be loosey-goosey about enforcing the code,” he said.
Grammitt continued: “With our part-time legislature, we know that everyone who’s not retired is employed elsewhere,” he said. “It’s expected, and sometimes anticipated by the people who elect these elected officials, that they’re going to have expertise or experience in a particular area. Maybe they elect someone affiliated with a union because most of the electorate is affiliated with a union. The commission wants to be very cautious about disenfranchising voters.”
Trillo doesn’t agree.
“The average person that votes has no idea … if they’re a union member,” Trillo said. “Fifteen percent of voters are informed on what they’re voting for.”
Senator Alves, the Finance Committee chairman, agrees with Grammitt:
“The people of their districts know where they work and they elect them. I don’t see a problem with that. If the people of their district find there’s a problem, they throw them out of office,” Alves said.
Alves was asked whether it was appropriate for labor union employees to serve on labor committees: “If they’re working for organized labor, it’s their area of expertise. It’s no more than a business person wanting to be on Corporations. There’s probably more people on the business side of the equation who champion business causes — lower taxes, flat tax, all of that, up here than there are labor people championing the causes of labor. Look around this chamber. We have more conservative Democrats who would stand on the side of corporations over the side of organized labor, I can tell you that.”
(projo.com)