Teamsters Pick Convicted Felon for Board

The Teamsters executive board, which only a month ago agreed to a sweeping settlement of a racketeering suit designed to fight criminal elements in the union, has appointed a new member who has two prior convictions for federal labor law violations.

George Vitale, 60, president of Teamsters Union Local 283 in Detroit, was appointed to fill a vacancy on the 18-member board at a meeting this week in Palm Springs.

In October, 1972, Vitale pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge of accepting $500 from Sanron Service Co., a Detroit company whose workers were represented by Vitale’s local, in violation of the Taft-Hartley Act. He was fined $2,000 and given two years probation.

Just a month later, he was convicted by a federal jury in Detroit on a felony charge of embezzling union funds in violation of the Landrum-Griffin Act. He was fined $1,000 and given two years probation. The conviction was sustained by a federal appeals court in January, 1974.

“Some things never change,” said a government official who was familiar with Vitale’s record when informed of his selection.

“Anybody can wash dirty linen,” Vitale said when asked about the convictions in a telephone interview from his Palm Springs hotel room. “I’m not going into that. As far as I’m concerned, my record speaks for itself. I’ve been in the labor movement for 30 years, never been in jail in my life and do the best possible job for all the Teamsters I can,” he said.

Duke Zeller, the Teamsters public relations director said “no comment” when asked about Vitale’s record. One Teamster board member said he was surprised to hear about Vitale’s criminal record and praised him as a “team player” and a “tough negotiator.”

On March 14, the Teamsters and the Justice Department announced that they had settled an unprecedented racketeering suit the government had filed against the union in New York. The settlement provides that three officials will be appointed by the court to fight organized crime within the union.

U.S. District Judge David N. Edelstein is expected to appoint the three officials in the next few weeks, based on recommendations by the government and the union. Government sources said it was possible that the officials would then look into Vitale’s appointment.

Randy M. Mastro, the assistant U. S. attorney in New York, who was the chief prosecutor in the case, declined comment on Vitale’s appointment.

Vitale first became a member of the Teamsters in 1949 and began to work his way up the union ranks. Labor Department records show that in 1987, he was paid $127,689 in salaries and expenses for his jobs as president of Local 283 and as general organizer.

In recent years, Vitale’s local has been involved in a controversy after he took his members out of the main Michigan Teamster health and welfare plan and put them in another plan that has had financial problems and failed to pay claims promptly. “People were getting dunned and billed by their hospitals,” said a Labor Department official.

The plan is currently administered by Anthony LaPiana, according to a Labor Department official. Jackie Presser, the president of the Teamsters who died last July, told FBI agents that LaPiana had ties to organized crime, according to files that the Justice Department has entered into the court record of the New York racketeering case.

The main Teamster health and welfare plan in Michigan had been under the control of Bobby Holmes, a longtime Teamster vice president, now retired. He had been at odds with Vitale for years.

Vitale’s 1972 embezzlement conviction stemmed from a complicated arrangement involving Cadillac cars that Local 283 had provided to him and two other officials of the local. In early 1968, the local changed its policy about buying cars for the union officials and decided instead to lease the cars for them. Then Vitale negotiated the sale of the old cars, the leasing of new ones and the repurchase of one of the cars for himself, all through Klett Cadillac Co. of Detroit.

Klett’s general manager testified that the union received about $1,200 to $1,400 less than the fair market value of the car that Vitale repurchased and that he “reaped the benefit of the difference.”