November 28, 2005

BY ROBERT C. HERGUTH Staff Reporter

Another veteran Teamsters official is in trouble for allegedly maintaining contact with Bill Hogan Jr., a once-powerful labor leader kicked out of the Teamsters after being accused of steering business to a nonunion company that employed his brother.

Robert Riley, the director of organizing for Teamsters Local 714, is being investigated by a union watchdog and could face expulsion for allegedly staying in touch with Hogan.

Hogan's family has run Local 714 for several generations, and Hogan also once ran the powerful coalition that includes nearly two dozen Chicago area Teamsters locals and 100,000 members. He was expelled in 2002, and members are barred from ever again "knowingly associating" with him.

Despite that prohibition, several labor leaders have admitted contact with Hogan -- adding fuel to suspicions that Hogan still has a hand in union affairs.

Other official stepped down

This past summer, the union watchdog -- the quasi-governmental Independent Review Board -- used cell phone records as evidence that high-ranking California union boss John Kikes spoke to Hogan a number of times after Hogan's expulsion.

Earlier, one of the union's highest-ranking and longest-serving officials in Chicago, Joseph Bernstein, stepped down after conceding he dined with Hogan and spoke to him on the phone and at a yacht party during a Florida labor conference.

Hogan's successor as Chicago's top Teamster, John Coli, also was at that party and admitted in a sworn statement to seeing Hogan and saying, "Hi, how are you doing?"

Coli has not gotten into trouble, but Bernstein and Kikes were formally kicked out of the union last month after investigations by the review board.

Riley, 64, is accused of having repeated interaction with Hogan, the best man at Riley's wedding. Riley, a longtime friend, colleague and business partner with the Hogan family, could not be reached for comment.

Arrangement called unfair

"Riley acknowledged that after Hogan's permanent bar, he either saw or called Hogan two or three times a week," according to a review board report released in recent days. During a seven-month period, "there were at least 112 telephone calls between Hogan's cellular telephone number and Riley's home and cellular telephone numbers."

The two also took at least two business trips to New Jersey earlier this year, according to the report.

"Riley knew that Teamsters, other than family members, were prohibited from knowingly associating with someone who was barred from the union," the report stated. "Although Riley claimed that he considered himself to be in 'their [Hogan's] family,' Riley is not related to Hogan by blood or through marriage," it added.

Reached on Sunday, Hogan had no comment on the Riley matter, but said the rule preventing Teamsters from associating with him is unfair.

"This is still a free country" where freedom of speech is allowed, Hogan said, adding cryptically: "At some point we're going to say something about this."

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