Democracy Suffers at DC 37

A recent officers' election for a District Council 37 local highlighted much that is wrong with the city's largest municipal-employee union.

Mark Rosenthal, the three-term incumbent president of Motor Vehicle Operators Local 983, won re-election with nearly 80 percent of the vote. What drama existed in the contest involved a challenge to whether he was a bona fide member of the union.

Following the vote two weeks ago, Mr. Rosenthal accused DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, with whom he has bitterly feuded for the past four years, of meddling in the election. Ms. Roberts vehemently denied any role in the election challenge, saying his accusations were "illogical, irrational, unfounded, and untrue."

Despite her protestations, however, a reasonable person might conclude that something other than coincidence was at work when the challenge was lodged by attorney Mitchel Craner, who in the past represented Ms. Roberts on numerous occasions in legal matters. One would not have to be overly cynical, either, to wonder who was calling the plays when an election observer from another DC 37 local, Pamela Rodriguez of Local 1549, asserted that Mr. Rosenthal was not a member in good standing of DC 37. How would she know, and why would she care, unless she was running errands for Ms. Roberts?

Ms. Roberts once again insisted that she does not involve herself in locals' affairs, respecting their autonomy, "a DC 37 policy I strongly support and have always followed." The truth is, she has used that policy as an excuse not to rein in questionable actions by local presidents who are allies, and used subterfuges to ignore it when doing so might cause problems for her political enemies.

On the other hand, while Mr. Rosenthal lauded the participation of his members in the election, two key aspects of it do not reflect well on him, as well as DC 37.

One is that only 19 percent of those who pay dues to Local 983 actually voted. Part of the reason is that the local conducted a walk-in election at DC 37's headquarters rather than a mail ballot. The fact that the turnout rate was nearly 10 times as high as for the past two elections in DC 37's largest local, 372 - home of Ms. Roberts's most-powerful political ally, President Veronica Montgomery-Costa - is nothing to celebrate.

The other disturbing revelation from the election is that 763 of the 2,572 Local 983 dues-payers were ineligible to vote because they are not considered union members. These agency fee-payers have no apparent reason not to want to join the local, since they pay the equivalent of union dues, and so the most likely conclusion is that insufficient effort has been made to sign them up.

This is a problem throughout DC 37, 17 percent of whose dues-payers are not union members, but for Local 983 to be near 30 percent should embarrass Mr. Rosenthal. If there is a shortage of DC 37 reps available to distribute and collect union cards or a lack of personnel in the Blue-Collar Division that services his local, he and his officers should be out organizing those dues-payers - or making enough noise, as he has proven himself capable of doing, to get more help from DC 37.

Mr. Rosenthal can't credibly talk about the lack of democracy that exists in DC 37's electoral processes while at the same time allowing more than a quarter of the employees in his bargaining unit to be disenfranchised.