Public Employee Press

Union mourns loss of negotiator Frank Burns

Frank Burns — Vietnam veteran, city worker and deeply committed trade unionist — died June 21 at 59, not long after undergoing heart surgery. An important and well loved member of the DC 37 community, Burns was mourned by union members, officers and staff.

After serving two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Navy Seabee, Burns attended John Jay College on the GI bill and in 1970 began a civil service career as a Police Administrative Aide. A militant unionist, he chaired the PAA Chapter of Clerical-Administrative Employees Local 1549 and was elected 4th vice president of the local. In 1982, he became a grievance rep in the Clerical Division and in 1986, he was named an assistant director in theDC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept.
His colleague and friend, MichaelMusuraca, delivered the eulogy June 25 at Brooklyn’s Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church.

Musuraca spoke with simple eloquence about the character of the man: “We loved him for his values, his sense of humor, and his unending commitment to caring for those around him. Frank took the adversity of others and made it his own, and managed, more often than not, to make it better.”

After describing the many qualities that made Burns special — his ability to put things in perspective, his uncomplaining nature, his ability to laugh and make others do so as well — Musuraca noted that, “What made Frank even more special, was that he never thought he was special.”

Research and Negotiations Director Dennis Sullivan summed up his friend’s life: “Frank Burns was, first and foremost, a dedicated trade unionist, a skilled professional negotiator, a loving family man and perhaps the funniest man on the face of the earth. His presence will be sorely missed in the labor movement and District Council 37.”

Burns’s survivors include his wife, Kathleen, brother Michael, six children and eight grandchildren.

— Jane LaTour