FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Release #060-00
Thursday, February 17, 2000

Release #060-00

MAYOR GIULIANI CALLS ON CITY COUNCIL
NOT TO WEAKEN PUBLIC MARKET LAWS

Bill Would Undermine City's Efforts to Keep Organized Crime Out of Public Markets

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani again called on the City Council not to approve Introductory Number 459-A, legislation that would significantly weaken the laws originally enacted to free the City's public wholesale markets from organized crime and corruption. The bill, being considered today by the Council's Economic Development Committee, amends Local Law 28 of 1997, legislation sought by
Mayor Giuliani and credited for ridding the Fulton Fish, Hunts Point and Gansevoort Meat Markets of organized crime.

"The proposed legislation, if adopted, would be a step back to the days when organized crime ran the public markets. It took new laws, special task forces and constant policing and oversight to free the markets from the grip of criminal enterprises. All that we have gained is now in jeopardy due to these proposals," the Mayor said.

"The Administration's successful public markets initiatives have enabled the City to exercise regulatory control over their operations and provide an atmosphere in which law abiding businesses can operate free from organized crime, corruption, and violence," the Mayor continued. "As a result, we have seen the markets become safer, competition return and costs decrease. These results benefit the unions, employees and customers. The markets are now sources of economic vitality for the City."

The proposed legislation seeks to define the markets as public property. This would undermine the City's ability to limit access to the markets and track people who visit the markets, both effective tools for controlling organized crime.
Since the markets are leased to the City as cooperatives, redefining them as "public" would be legally indefensible as well as extremely expensive. The City would assume responsibility for sanitation and street repairs while also becoming liable for torts that occur in the markets.

The bill would also allow picketers to protest directly in front of targeted vendors. Since picketing is governed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which pre-empts City and State law, the Council does not have the authority to authorize it. The NRLA allows picketers to protest outside the markets to ensure the safe and orderly operation of the markets. Allowing picketers inside the markets would give organized crime the opportunity to practice their signature techniques of threats and intimidation.

"This bill does not protect the people who work at public markets,"
the Mayor said. "It puts them at risk by sending a message that organized crime is welcome at the very institutions where they work, at the very institutions we worked so hard to remove. The best way for Council Members to protect employees would be to vote against this legislation."

The proposed legislation would also allow workers who commit illegal acts to avoid civil liability by arguing that the acts were committed while in the scope of their employment. Since the current system protects employees who unknowingly commit illegal acts at the direction of their employer, there is no reason to shift all liability to the employer and diminish employees' sense of accountability and responsibility.

The proposal would amend the arbitrator selection process agreed to by the Administration, the City Council and the unions in 1997, replacing it within an untested method, which is more lengthy and bureaucratic. Since the current arbitration process has yet to be used, there is no basis for replacing it.

"As we have seen recently in Hunts Point, with the recent arrests of eight USDA inspectors and thirteen associates of wholesalers on bribery and racketeering charges, racketeering and other crime still exists in the public markets. Not only has the Council refused to consider for over a year the administration's legislation allowing the City to regulate the construction industry, but they now have chosen to weaken the effective public markets law," Mayor Giuliani concluded.

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