Herskowitz Complaint 2

8/6/2019 Herskowitz Complaint 2

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COMPLAINT

IN THE MATTER OF

ADDRESS:

STATE OF CONNECTICUTLABOR DEPARTMENT

CONNECTICUT STATE BOARD OF LABOR RELATIONS

U' (RESPONDENT)

(COMPLAINANT)

PHONE: *>*


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Lisa Herskowitz Complaint

ADDRESSES AND PHONE NUMBERS OF RESPONDENTSState Employees BargainingAgent Coalition c/o Attorney DanLivingston, 557 Prospect Avenue,Hartford, CT 06105, (860) 233-9821.Division of Criminal Justice,c/o Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, 300 Corporate Place, Rocky Hill, CT06067, (860) 258-5800.Governor Dannel Malloy, Office of the Governor, State Capitol, 210 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT 06106,(860) 566^840.Connecticut Associationof Prosecutors, c/o Attorney Jack Doyle, Union President, State's Attorney'sOffice, 235 Church Street, New Haven,CT 06510, (203) 927-5356.AMENDMENT TOCOMPLAINT (continued)

The respondents have continued to engage in coercion and interference with the rights of unionmembers, to refuse to bargain in good faith, and o violate the duty of fair representation, in violation ofConnecticut General Statutes Sections 5-271 and 5-272-The member unions rejected the tentativeagreement in June in accordance with SEBAC's former bylaws even though 57 percent of the memberspurportedly voted in favor of it. The no vote was finalized onJuly 5, 2011,1believe. That should haveclosed the contracts and ended the negotiations, but SEBAC begged the governor to resumenegotiations.The governor threatened, not only massive layoffs after the agreement was voted down, but alsolegislative changes to state-employee benefits that are mandatory subjects of bargaining. TheStateSenate actually passed such a bill on June 30.1believe itwas SB 1301. 1 also believe the governor calledfor itthe daybefore. In decision No.2456 dated January14,1986, at page 10, the State Board of LaborRelations (Board) stated that "threats and attempts ... to seek legislative changes in conditions ofemployment that aremandatory subjects of bargaining are not favored..."While the board held in thatcase that such conduct did not constitute bargaining In badfaith, the Board relied on the facts that thelegislature wasunwilling to allow suchan "end run" around the bargaining process,andalso that theState did bargain in goodfaith for an extended period of time after the threat.In this case, the democrat-controlled legislature hasdemonstrated awillingness to legislate againstunion membersat the request of the governor, thus the threat isvery real. The House did not vote onthe bill so it isstill out there. It was tabled pending further action bySEBAC. Moreover,since then, thegovernor has continually refused to bargain in good faith. He refused to negotiate at all unless SEBACfirst changedrts bylaws in a way that would have permitted passage of the original agreement He alsorefused to consider anything but a "clarified"version of the rej'ected agreement. Then, onJuly 21, he seta final deadline of July 22 for SEBAC to endorsewhat is essentially the same agreement, which they didat about 10:00 p.m. Talk about pressureand coercion!

Subscribed and sworn before methis>^ da y of JM I[H, 2011.Lisa Herskowitz - ^! i A 'V

_ , Commissioner of the Superior Court


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Le o Canty is ExecutiveSecretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and second vice president of the AFT-Connecticut, which is a SEBAC union. I believe he casts the vote for AFT but cannot be sure because hehas consistently refused to provide me and others with the minutes of the SEBAC meetings. Saturdaymorning, July 23, Leo posted on the SEBAC Facebook page, InThisTogether, "Ourvote? This is absolutelyawful - what DANNO isdoing to us all- he s awful, -but youarecorrect - no one ikes' a concessionpackage - and...no one "likes" layoffs (exceptPOWER RANGER DANNO)...no one (except heartless TINMAN DANNO) 'likes seeingthe poor anddisadvantage^ suffer from lack of vital services or them no onewants to see our collective bargaining rights skewered (except(R)ENVY PSEUDOCHRISTIE DANNO (R)CT)someone has o usetheir brains andtheir hearts and their poweror money,whateverthat maybe, toend the atrocities -if s not sared sacrifice hereits ours.."Clearlythegovernor did not bargain ingoodfaith- Clearly SEBAC leaders knuckled under. Leo's duress Is evident from his words.1 wish SEBAC ha drefused to becoercedand filed acomplaint.Theydidn't so lam doing itfor them. I still would like to seethe minutes from all of the SEBAC meetings onthese issues.As for my own union, CAP, they have continued to violate their duty of fair representation. Under theformer SEBAC bylaws, my extremely small union between 250 and 260 membershad some powerbecause any two unions could reject anagreement. Noweight unions andfifty percent of the vote plusone (instead of two unions and twenty one percent) are neededto reject anagreement My union nolonger has a meaningful voice In a sea of 45,000 plus state employee union members. Our president,John Doyle, never asked for member input onchanging the bylaws. Even though our union passed theagreement, it was only by seven votes with a larger number not voting, andvoting to changethe bylawsand render our union powerless and helpless s avital and completely different issue.! emailed ourunion Vice President, Christopher Godialis, as well as John Doyle about this but didn't get a response. Itis impossible to fairly represent the membership on such an important issue without consulting them oreven telling them what you are planning on doing. Also, John Doyle never asked for input beforeendorsing the "clarified'" agreement, just like hedidn't consult with us regarding the original agreementMoreover, I ust learned today, July 25, 2011, that CAP violated its own bylaws during the voting processon the original agreement. Our bylaws require a meeting to transact any business,with a quorumpresent, presumablyso we can assemble and debate and a minority cannot make decisions for us. ThereWas no meeting. The bylaws also require that membership action on any issue "shall require theaffirmative vote of at least two-thirds of the votes..." Ourvote was 114yes o 107 no, not even close tothe two-thirds needed or affirmation. Nevertheless, our leader registered our vote as a yesvote inviolation of our bylaws.As for SEBAC, they have once again exceeded their authority by negotiating our wages. This is totallyunfair. Assmal l as my union is, no matter what our vote is,other unions will determinewhat happens toour wages, Increments or bonuses, and longevity pay. We are supposed to negotiate this individually.SEBAC ha s usurped and interfered with our normalcollective-bargaining process, and my union ha sagain violated its duty of fair representation byallowingIt

Subscribed and sworn before me this2day of ^"/M, 2011.Lisa Herskowitz --... i \.f -\ Commissioner of the Superior Court


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Lisa HerskowitK Complaint

Under its former bylaws, SEBAC is required to give 30 days written notice to all members of any vote tochange the bylaws. They did not do it The eaders "waived" it. Thebylaws change hashuge implications.The notice requirement was designed o give union members time to object and maybeseek legalredress. Waiving it violated the duty of fair representation. I believe the members should have beenal lowed to vote on the bylaws change. At the very least, they should have been given adequate noticea nd an opportunity to protest itSEBAC hasalso violated the duty of fair representation byendorsing anagreement that is in all materialrespects the s a m e as the agreement that was voted down. We exercised our collective-bargaining rightsand voted no to it. To resurrect it goes beyond mere interference with our rights, it runs our rightsoverwith atruck and then backs up and runs them over again. The agreement was rejected- Then SEBACchanged the rules of voting.Then they endorsed he s a m e agreement. They havefor all intents andpurposes eliminated "our rights entirely. It would be unconscionable to allow them to make us keepvoting until they get the result they want.That is if they even let usvote. There have been suggestionsthat not a ll of uswill even be allowed to vote on the "clarified" agreementThe original agreement was voted down in June. Our contracts remained unchanged-Even under thenew bylaws, SEBAC needs the approval of 14unions with at least eighty percent of the membership toreopen a n existing contract. SEBAC apparently reopened"negotiations" againwithout such a vote.L eoCanty claims they could do this because they never re-closed the contract after the novote. Ibelievethis was unfair. Had there been a new vote on re-opening the contracts. Sal Luciano probably wouldhave been constrained to vote no on it, just as hevoted no to the bylaws change.The contracts wouldnot have been reopened because S al's union, AFSCME, represents more than twenty percent of themembership. By changing bylaws and waiving notice and waiving a new vote under Section 10(a] oftheir bylaws onwhether to reopenthe contract, SEBAC isessentially coercing the membership intoratifying anagreement we have already voted down. Ihave been trying to get information onwhatactually happened Fridaynight Was there avote to endorse the "clarified" agreement? What was thevote? 1 have been unable to obtain any information so far from either SEBAC or CAP.SEBAC has a web page, inthistogetherct.org. They shut down the comments section because of negativecomments about the agreement that wa s voted down. They also have a Facebook page, a s mentionedabove, which union members resorted to in order to communicate with SEBAC andeach other. I wasposting on that site Saturday, July 16into Sunday, July 17, trying to get information on the upcomingvote on bylaws changes, 1 was verbally attacked byJim Vigue, who isthe Political Director of theConnecticut Employees Union Independent 110.1challenged him on the fact that hisunion wa s votingto change he bylaws even though its membership voted down the agreement. Hewent nutsandattacked me and anyone who came to my defense. He called me a "liar,"an "asshole," and a "loser."Hesa id that 1 a nd my sister a re "two worthless pieces of crap." He apologized the next morning a nd blamedit on the wine. He has since recanted ttie "wine" thing and the pagemaster hasdeleted everything heever said. 1 Just happen to have copies of the highlights.

Subscribed andsworn before meths day of JT>/M. 2011.Lisa Herskowitz _ r-Commissioner of the Superior Court


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Now SEBAC has changed its Facebookpolicy. Only the pagemaster-usually LeoCanty- can nitiateposts. Others cancomment but they have been deleting anynegative comments. They have managed tobanish me from commenting at all. Everything on there is pro-agreement now, exceptfor Leo's onepostquoted above, and that hasalready been deleted. Matt O'Connor is on television all the time for SEBAC-Thls weekend, he old all of the "union busters" (aka "no" voters) to "fuck off & let ourvoters freely votethis time" We are union dissenters, not busters.In Decision No.2464 dated March 19,19S6,the Board talked extensively about union members' rightsto free speech, andspecifically to engage in criticism. It iscoercivefor SEBAC to post only positivecomments ontheir Facebook page. Anyone who doesn't know the history would think that everyone isin favor of the agreement. It also al lows them to post misinformation and refuse to let anyone dispute itThey are engaging in content-based censorship in violation of the constitution andjn an^effortjto^pushpeople into votingyes.SEBAC, CAPand all of the unions in my opinion have violated the duty of fair representation by doingnothing to defend state employee union members in the press and at the legislature- They keep tryingto shove this agreement down our throats.They act like the members didsomething wrong in rejectingit andthey have to save us from ourselves. They have made us ook bad to the public bytoutingsomething that we rejected as a "great deal."The leaders are not representing us at all, justthemselves,and they are bringing scorn and wrath down upon us.They are even attacking some of us in anunprofessional way ontheir public Facebook page.They have labeled the dissenters, or even those justquestioning the fairness and legality of their latest moves, as"destructive" forces.We paydues.Wehave a right to dissent, to question, to demand nformation they refuse to provide.They representus,right? How can demonizing us possibly be fair representation?

Ha d SEBAC and the unions asked for our input the first time around andoffered something to us thatwa s honest andpalatable, we state employees would all be heroes. Instead they let the governordominate them and put before us an agreement we couldn't accept and subjected us to scorn, ridiculeand anger. This breach of duty is so bad that Ibelieve SEBAC andall of the member unions shouldbedecertified.There may be another vote coming, if they let all of us vote at all. 1 pray the Boardwill takeaction as quickly aspossible. These abuses of union members' rights are flagrant and will continue untilthe governor and management and SEBAC and the individual unions get what they want. Please act assoon aspossible to put an end to it.Thank you for your attention andconsideration.

Subscribed and sworn before me this day of 3Vi / M , 2011.LJsa Herskowitz , Commissioner of the Superior Court

Documents

Herskowitz Complaint 2