Every Labor Day, union officials tout themselves as the voice of working people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what happens when workers talk back? New York public employees have found themselves in union officials\u2019 crosshairs for asking difficult questions, challenging the status quo, or trying to exercise their rights.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ed Seabron\u2019s union defended an official who threatened and harassed him, as Seabron alleges in court. Ashley Kjarbo\u2019s union apparently worked with her boss to discipline her. Ray Michielini sued his union, claiming it cost him thousands in lost wages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their stories are a window into a world where union officials can run roughshod over workers\u2019 rights\u2014unless someone holds them accountable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ed Seabron<\/a><\/strong>, a longtime NYPD tow operator who helped clear NYC\u2019s streets in the aftermath of 9\/11 and other emergencies, resigned his membership with AFSCME, District Council 37 because he was frustrated the union didn\u2019t bargain for overtime or hazard pay that other emergency personnel received.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Seabron just wanted better representation. Union officials made it personal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n One day, Seabron, who is African-American, found himself staring at a doctored image of himself shaking hands with someone dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes. An AFSCME vice president, also African-American, had posted the photo to an employee Facebook group.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n To Seabron, the union official\u2019s post, accompanied by a video threatening, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna play dirty,\u201d crossed a line. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to think of a worse insult one black man can level at another than to falsely depict him as a KKK collaborator,\u201d he says<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Seabron filed<\/a><\/strong> an unfair labor practice charge alleging the union vice president\u2019s threatening statements had broken the law.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But the city\u2019s Board of Collective Bargaining dismissed his case once, joined the union\u2019s side as Seabron\u2019s adversary on appeal, then ruled against him again after a state court ruled for him and sent the case back\u2014a process that Seabron believes violated his due process right to a hearing before an unbiased adjudicator. He is now asking<\/a><\/strong> a state appellate court to vacate the city board\u2019s decision and send the case to a truly neutral decision maker. Seabron is represented by the Fairness Center, the nonprofit public interest firm where I serve as president.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the union has downplayed its vice president\u2019s Facebook post as \u201ccampaign puffery meant to reinforce the Union\u2019s message.\u201d According to Seabron<\/a><\/strong>, \u201cit\u2019s as if union officials approve of [the vice president\u2019s] message that seeking better representation is like working with the KKK.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Union officials can also wield their authority through the workplace chain of command to make life difficult for workers who don\u2019t fall in line.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n IRS employee Ashley Kjarbo<\/a><\/strong> of Brookhaven, for example, tried to leave the National Treasury Employees Union so she wouldn\u2019t have to pay monthly dues amid a season of financial hardship.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But union officials gave Kjarbo the runaround when she tried to exercise her right not to be part of the union.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A union president reported Kjarbo to her boss, who reprimanded her for \u201cdiscourteous and unprofessional behavior\u201d and threatened to impose further discipline unless she stopped trying to leave the union, she alleged.\u00a0<\/p>\n After the Fairness Center helped Kjarbo file unfair labor practice charges against the union<\/a><\/strong> and the IRS<\/a><\/strong>, the agency removed the reprimand from her employee file and sent a notice<\/a><\/strong> to Kjarbo\u2019s colleagues promising to not \u201cinterfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n