Labor big a real heavy sleeper
Union fat cat Mark Rosenthal spends more time sleeping at his desk than organizing labor, a series of damning photos reveals.
The 400-pound president of Local 983 of District Council 37 — the city’s largest blue-collar municipal-workers union — often downs a huge meal, then drops into dreamland in the early afternoon, members of the union’s executive board told The Post.
“He eats lunch when he arrives at work at 2 p.m. Then, like clockwork, he goes to sleep with a cup of soda on the table and the straw in it,” said Marvin Robbins, a union vice president.
“Then he wakes up, looks at his watch and says, ‘I have to get out before the traffic gets bad.’ He’s usually out by 4 p.m. after being at the office two hours.”
Rosenthal is a former Parks Department employee who rose to power campaigning to rid the union of corruption in the late 1990s.
He last made embarrassing headlines in 2009, when he inspired a City Council bill requiring jumbo-size ambulances for morbidly obese patients after he had a stroke at City Hall.
Since then, he hasn’t been making much of an effort to give the city’s ambulances a break and slim down. Union officials say he racks up $1,400 in monthly food bills on the union dime.
Much of the 5-foot-7, 400-plus-pound Rosenthal’s food tabs are for catered union events and meals he writes off as “union business,” board members claim.
They say he significantly overorders at eateries like Dallas BBQ, the Stage Door Deli and Pine Restaurant in The Bronx, a hangout for local politicians, and takes the extra food back to his Bronxdale apartment.
“He’s always walking off with a doggie bag or extra boxes of food,” said another executive board member.
Rosenthal, who earns $156,000 annually, yesterday denied being a free spender— and insisted he works “12-to-14-hour days.”
He says the allegations are “part of a smear campaign” by a faction trying to get another Local 983 vice president, Joseph Puleo, elected president in a June 5 showdown.
He said it’s normal for executives to take “power naps.”
He also blamed his meetings with the sandman on the effects of pain medication he takes for backaches he has suffered since he fell through a chair at a McDonald’s last year.
“The chair broke because I’m big,” Rosenthal said.
“I’m 60 years old, so if I eat during my lunch hour and take a little medication, can’t I close my eyes?” he said outside his apartment complex. “Is it so outrageous?”
Rosenthal is also under fire from the union’s executive board for allowing lawyer Arthur Schwartz to allegedly rack up an average of $12,000 a month in union legal fees for years despite being on a $5,500 monthly retainer, board members said.
But Schwartz claims he has submitted only one monthly bill over $10,000 in 15 years representing the union and averages about $7,000 per month in fees.
APRIL 2, 2013
The executive board on May 15 voted to fire Schwartz anyway — and also to pull Rosenthal’s union car.
Board members said they were furious enough to fire Schwartz because he pursued a lawsuit on Rosenthal’s behalf aimed at changing the makeup of the union’s election committee after it nominated Puleo as a candidate for president on May 7.
Rosenthal responded to Schwartz’s firing by filing another suit days later in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming the May 15 meeting occurred without his approval.
The suit also accuses executive board members of using union resources to sway the election in Puleo’s favor.
“Mr. Puleo and his cohorts have basically seized control without having won the election,” the suit says.
“Not only that, [but] they have [also] assigned legal work to attorneys, including to Mr. Puleo’s campaign lawyer.”
APRIL 2, 2013
The executive board on May 15 voted to fire Schwartz anyway — and also to pull Rosenthal’s union car.
Board members said they were furious enough to fire Schwartz because he pursued a lawsuit on Rosenthal’s behalf aimed at changing the makeup of the union’s election committee after it nominated Puleo as a candidate for president on May 7.
Rosenthal responded to Schwartz’s firing by filing another suit days later in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming the May 15 meeting occurred without his approval.
The suit also accuses executive board members of using union resources to sway the election in Puleo’s favor.
“Mr. Puleo and his cohorts have basically seized control without having won the election,” the suit says.
“Not only that, [but] they have [also] assigned legal work to attorneys, including to Mr. Puleo’s campaign lawyer.”
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