IN grade-school baseball and stickball games, while other children stood out for their fleetness of foot, strength of arm and speed of bat, Richard A. Curreri was already becoming known for his skills as a mediator.þþÿI tended to be the kid they went to to make a decision in normal disputes,ÿ he recalled. ÿWhether somebody was safe, whether somebody was out - they'd ask me. I don't know why. For whatever reason, that was my role. Probably I was a better umpire than baseball player.ÿ þþMr. Curreri's skill at seeing both sides of an argument has served him well at the New York State Public Employment Relations Board, where he is the director of conciliation and played a critical role last week in developing a framework that ended New York City's first transit strike in a quarter-century.þþMr. Curreri, 53, a mild-mannered public servant with a wry sense of humor, has helped settle scores of labor disputes over the years, including strikes by teachers in Yonkers in 1999 and in Buffalo in 2000. Nothing in his 29 years at the state labor board, however, had approached the fury and intensity of the transit negotiations. þþOn one side was Roger Toussaint, the militant leader of 33,700 subway and bus workers, who incurred fines and imposed hardships on riders by starting an illegal strike. On the other side was the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which was under pressure from Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to hold the line on the rising cost of health and retirement benefits.þþMr. Curreri jumped into the fray on Dec. 19, the eve of the strike, but his low-key involvement went virtually unnoticed by the throngs of journalists camped out at the Grand Hyatt, the Midtown hotel where the main talks took place. þþJoined by two handpicked mediators, Martin F. Scheinman and Alan R. Viani, Mr. Curreri set up shop at a different hotel, the New York Helmsley, a block and half east on East 42nd Street. þþThe 33rd and 35th floors of the Helmsley became a place for sober discussion, away from the cameras and the rhetoric at the Hyatt. The two sides did not meet face to face; instead, the three mediators spent hours at a time with the union's top lawyers, Walter M. Meginniss Jr. and Basil A. Paterson, along with Mr. Toussaint and the authority's chief negotiator, Gary J. Dellaverson.þþMr. Curreri slept only a few hours on Dec. 19 and 20 and not at all on Dec. 21. Around 11 a.m. on Dec. 22, he and the other men, looking haggard but also happy, emerged from an elevator inside the Hyatt to announce that the strike would end. The next day, they also quietly drafted a suggested settlement - ÿnot intended for public release,ÿ it states - that is nearly identical to the deal both sides finally agreed upon on Tuesday of this week.þþMr. Curreri shuns the limelight, but agreed in an interview to describe the frenetic atmosphere at the hotel. ÿPeople are running completely on adrenaline at that point,ÿ he recalled. ÿThey are very tired, but they're still sharp. Nobody got so wigged out they were just ready to concede. It didn't happen that way. People knew exactly what they were doing.ÿþþBorn in Brooklyn, Mr. Curreri grew up in Valley Stream, on Long Island, and graduated in 1973 from Cornell University, where he studied government. He did not develop an interest in labor relations until his time at Albany Law School.þþONE of his professors there was John E. Sands, who had been a top New York City labor-relations official under Mayor John V. Lindsay. Mr. Sands saw a spark of talent in Mr. Curreri and encouraged him to enter the field. þþÿHe was born to arbitrate and mediate,ÿ Mr. Sands said. ÿHe has a sense of the process - the pragmatics of mediation as an extension of collective bargaining. He just has a natural feel for it. Plus, he can read parties' real intentions, behind the rhetoric.ÿ þþAfter getting his law degree in 1976, Mr. Curreri joined the Public Employment Relations Board, a small agency created under the Taylor Law of 1967, which forbids public employees to strike.þþMr. Curreri started as an assistant counsel, defending decisions by the board, which makes rulings in complaints about improper labor practices. He also became a protégé of Harold R. Newman, a former union organizer who was chairman of the board from 1977 to 1990 and who died last month at 84. In 1990, Mr. Curreri became director of conciliation, taking a job Mr. Newman held when he helped settle the last New York City teachers' strike, in 1975.þþPauline Rogers Kinsella, the board's chairwoman from 1991 to 1998, has a theory for Mr. Curreri's success. ÿHe has the ability to listen carefully, which is a critical quality in a mediator,ÿ she said. ÿHe does not inject himself into, or make personal, the mediation process.ÿþþMr. Curreri lives in Voorheesville, about 11 miles southwest of the board's office in Colonie, an Albany suburb. His wife, Pamela Otis, is an environmental analyst at the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Their daughter, Allie, 18, is a freshman at Dartmouth; their son, R. J., 16, is a junior in high school.þþBut Mr. Curreri makes no claim to success at dispute resolution at home. ÿMy daughter and son read these articles that say I have great listening skills and they laugh and ask, 'Who is it that they're talking about?' ÿ he said with a chuckle.þþ
Source: NY Times
