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Teamster union violence resulted in the deaths of 97 people at the San Juan DuPont Plaza Hotel on New Year’s Eve 1986.
What for many was supposed to be a wonderful celebration of the New Year, turned into a nightmare because of an attempt at brutal Big Labor persuasion.
Sadly, after the horrific deaths of 97 people in a fire lit by union militants, government responded with a New Act and several new regulations, but not one these laws or regulations addressed the cause of the fire – Big Labor goons.
It is the same old story of ignoring the elephant in the room and allowing violence to continue as part of Big Labor’s organizing tools.
The cause of the fire had been immediately apparent to then-Puerto Rican Governor Rafael Hernandez Colon who told reporters the following day that, ''We expect there may be arson here.''
He artfully skirted blaming the Teamsters directly, but explained that ''tense labor negotiations'' between the hotel and a union as the cause. Though admitting there was ''no hard evidence'' to implicate anyone, Hernandez Colon said reports persisted that just before the fire, ''information was going around that something was going to happen.''
Authorities arrested a local Teamsters official and two union members and charged them with 97 counts of first degree murder in the 1986 DuPont Plaza Hotel fire.
The DuPont Plaza fire, which killed 97 and injured about 140 others, was set on Dec. 31, 1986. It started after union hotel workers voted to reject a management proposal for a new contract.
Hector Escudero Aponte, a hotel maintenance worker, pleaded guilty in San Juan's Superior Court to reduced charges of 97 counts of second degree murder and one count each of arson and conspiracy. He was sentenced to concurrent terms totaling 30 years.
Escudero told the government that Rivera, a fellow employee, had suggested setting a fire that day to pressure management to give in to union demands.
Other witnesses told investigators that Rivera had made statements before the fire broke out which suggested that there should or could be, a fire at the hotel that day, or that he had urged hotel employees to make a "curtain" to shield Escudero from view as he lit the sterno.
The indictment against Rivera stated that he had "knowingly and intentionally procure[d] the ... malicious damaging and destruction, by means of fire, of a building ... which fire resulted in the death of persons, all in violation of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2 and 844(i)."
Escudero had said he set the fire in an attempt to harass the hotel's management into knuckling under to an agreement acceptable to union bosses, for a new collective bargaining contract. The union had taken a strike vote and was threatening to walk out at midnight that day unless union boss demands were met.
On September 25, 1990, three years after the disaster, the United States enacted the Hotel and Motel Fire Safety Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-391).
U.S. Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert, stated that the law was one of the first times the U.S government took, "direct action to protect the public at large from the danger of fire,” and the United States Fire Administration credited the DuPont Plaza fire as the catalyst for the law. Coincidentally Boehlert's top five all-time contributors included the Teamsters.
Yet, none of the corrective actions addressed the Big Labor tactics that caused the fire and apparently three other previous fires were set during the weeks leading up to New Year’s Eve.
Ninety-seven souls were lost on that fateful New Year’s Eve, and yet nothing was done to fix the cause of the problem – Big Labor violence.
It’s time to stop ignoring union violence.
People’s lives shouldn’t be at risk just because union bosses are seeking to advance so-called “legitimate union objectives.”
It’s past time to start making union bosses pay for the violence and carnage they cause. It’s time to close their Hobbs Act loophole and make union violence a federal Crime again
