Public Employee Press

Union mourns hospital workers’ leader James Butler

Residents of Coney Island have probably never heard of James Butler, but thousands of them depend on Coney Island Hospital. As head of Local 420, Butler — together with DC 37, elected officials and community activists — played a major role in keeping the Brooklyn hospital open as Mayor Rudy Guiliani fought to shut it down. Today the hospital boasts the city’s finest ambulatory surgery facility, and a new Inpatient Tower Pavilion.

Butler, who in his 30 years as local president also led battles to save Brooklyn Central Laundry and other HHC facilities, passed away in the week of Nov. 18.

“Jim Butler is responsible for my being a union leader,” said Carmen Charles, who defeated him in an election for the presidency of Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420 in 2002. “The first time I went to one of his union meetings, it lit a fire in me.”

Butler inspired his membership with fiery speeches at rallies where members arrived on the local’s “Freedom Bus” and marched with his trademark coffin and cross to symbolize suffering that would result from the death of hospital services.

“All of us knew Jim as fighter for union members in general and Local 420 members in particular,” said Bill Lucy, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at the funeral service on Nov. 22 at Flushing’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Union members joined Carmen Charles, the Rev. Al Sharpton and members of the City Council and state Legislature at the funeral.

Butler’s latter years as president were marked by controversy about his salary, the local’s spending and a dues increase. During the mid-’90s he won a dues hike to refurbish a Harlem building as a new local headquarters, but the work was never done. When Charles became president she moved the local back into DC 37 headquarters. In a lawsuit filed by the local, the court found Butler liable for $1.6 million in improper spending.

Overall, said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, “He was in many ways a remarkable man and a dedicated leader who fought hard for his members and championed the cause of civil rights.”

— Alfredo Alvarado