Cranston's mayor says a division of Laborers International is "trying to manipulate and corrupt the [September primary] election."

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 17, 2004

BY DANIEL BARBARISI
Journal Staff Writers

CRANSTON -- The union that represents the city's crossing guards is urging its members to drop their political affiliation with the Democratic Party, at least temporarily, so they can vote in a Republican primary in September against Mayor Stephen P. Laffey.

On June 1 and 7, Donald S. Iannazzi, business manager for Public Service Employees Local Union 1033, a division of Laborers International, sent out 275 letters to those members of the union who, regardless of whether they work, are residents of Cranston.

"Together we will rid our community of irresponsible politicians like Cranston's Stephen Laffey," Iannazzi wrote in the June 1 letter. The Journal obtained copies of both letters yesterday.

"As Cranston residents, we must take this 'call to arms' personally. We are all depending on each other and every member of our union family to deliver a new message that public employees are the public servants that make government services work. This we can do by throwing Laffey out of office.

"In order to succeed in this most important task, we must all be qualified to vote in the September Primary Election," Iannazzi wrote.

"Our union is asking all Cranston members to make sure every member is registered to vote -- and registered to vote as an unaffiliated voter," Iannazzi wrote.

The June 7 letter instructs members to fill out an enclosed disaffiliation card, check the box marked "unaffiliated," and drop it off at the union office.

The letter clearly has had an effect.

In the first two weeks of this month, the Board of Canvassers received nearly 260 disaffiliation cards. That's several times what they receive in a normal election year, according to Jacqueline Caruolo, clerk of the city's Canvassing Authority.

In March, April and May, before the Iannazzi letters went out, the office was receiving about five disaffiliation cards each month.

Among those disaffiliating are well-known Democrats such as former state Rep. Colleen Crudele, State AFL-CIO Secretary/Treasurer George Nee, union officials such as Iannazzi, Arthur Jordan, and family members such as Joy Montanaro, wife of state Rep. Frank Montanaro.

IN RHODE ISLAND, an individual may vote in either political party's primary if he or she is listed as unaffiliated. However, that disaffiliation must be in effect 90 days before the primary. For the primary scheduled for Sept. 14, the deadline to disaffiliate was 4 p.m. yesterday.

Iannazzi said he sent the letters to roughly 275 union members in Cranston, both Republicans and Democrats, to persuade them to keep their options open.

"It's important that we are participating in the political process," he said.

He said the Cranston letter is part of a statewide effort to get union members to disaffiliate, to give them more influence come primary season. But Iannazzi would offer no further detail. He would not say whether his union or any other public-employee unions had sent out similiar letters in other communities.

So who will these disaffiliated voters vote for? So far, no one except Laffey has announced an intention to run for mayor on the Republican ticket.

The word on the street is that former School Committee member Gary Reilly, the husband of a city crossing guard, would be the Republican challenger.

Yesterday, Reilly said he has not yet decided whether to run. He will decide in the next two weeks. State law says candidates must declare by June 30.

Laffey said the letters are the first evidence of a concerted union effort to run him out of office. He said it's clear that the unions believe they could not beat him in a general election, so they intend to take advantage of the smaller voter pool in a primary.

"To me, they've done a poll and they know that the only way to do it is to rig an election," Laffey said. "That's why they are trying to rig, manipulate and corrupt the election."

Laffey said he had heard that the letters had gone out, but couldn't believe his eyes when he saw them yesterday.

"I don't know if you could find this anywhere, ever having happened. Tell them, in case they've forgotten, we actually live in America," Laffey said.

Republican City Committee Chairman Gary Vierra said he heard about the letters late yesterday afternoon. He said the union's effort will make him work a little harder, but that he is confident that Laffey will win in the primary.

"This is an attempt that is going to fail. I do have the resources to fight this effort," Vierra said.

SEVERAL MONTHS AFTER taking office, Laffey took on the city's 39 crossing guards, who are paid $45 an hour and granted fully paid family health-care benefits. Laffey fired the guards, hoping to replace them with private contractors, but was thwarted by a Superior Court ruling. The guards are back at work, awaiting the outcome of the city's appeal of the ruling to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Last fall, Laffey hired a private investigator and used hidden cameras to catch unionized public works employees sleeping on the job. The public works employees were represented by Local 251 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

As of this month, Cranston has roughly 51,000 eligible voters. There are just over 16,200 Democrats, 5,000 Republicans and 29,600 unaffiliated voters. These figures do not include the disaffiliation cards submitted this month.