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Don't Fault '375' in HA Flap

To the Editor:

I have never written to The Chief before despite (or perhaps because of) the generally positive coverage I receive. But today, "the day after" the Mayor announced his intention to run for a third term, I feel compelled to write.

Two weeks ago, as part of a Richard Steier column about the outrageous case being prosecuted by the Housing Authority against Mitchell Feder, my photo appeared, and under it was an assertion that I believed that Mitch's union (Local 375, AFSCME) wanted him fired "because he has been a political threat to his leadership."

I do not believe that to be true. I do believe that one misguided Local 375 official made a complaint to the Housing Authority. But I do not believe that the union leadership, particularly Claude Fort, had anything to do with it. What I do believe is that the charges against Mitch Feder were wholly the product of management's attempt to silence a critic.

We will prove at Mitch's hearings that the decision to prosecute Mr. Feder was a management decision and that the manager who takes credit for initiating things, Dave Marcinek, was trying to deflect responsibility when he testified, falsely, that "the union made me do it." Since when do we, on the trade-union side, take a manager's word on an issue like this? Marcinek is clearly anti-union, and his demeanor during his two days on the stand was that of someone hiding something. He was dishonest about his years of dealing with Feder, he was dishonest about the limits the Authority places on e-mail and computer use, and he was dishonest about whether Mitchell had notice about the Authority's new policy. Why believe him when he swears that "the union made me do it"?

I have spent many years of my career representing "dissenters" and "reformers." I helped opposition candidates win election in TWU, DC 37, DC 1707, PSC, CWA and Teamsters and many other unions, and I helped get rid of Gus Bevona in Local 32B-32J. I am a supporter of robust debate in unions. Along with several other unions, things in Local 375 are getting out of hand.

Unlike prior local leaders who allowed the local to be plundered, Claude Fort, in my opinion, genuinely wants to run Local 375 as an aggressive union, and fights hard for his members. His differences with his opponents involve tactics, not principle; personality, not honesty. But Claude, and the rest of the activists in Local 375, spend too much of their time fighting with each other.

Local 375, like the rest of the municipal and public-sector unions, is going to have a tough road ahead over the next few years. The Mayor has been setting a generous pattern in recent negotiations, far more generous than in the past. He is buying off potential political opponents as part of his undemocratic power grab. But beware — the next four years will be tough, and Local 375 and the rest of the public-sector labor movement will need to pull themselves together; they will be in a better position to fight if they resolve the internal bickering and use all of that energy to fight management.

That being said, I am making it known to all sides in Local 375 (and I have friends on both sides) that I am offering myself as a mediator in an effort to bring unity to that Local. And, hopefully, we can work together to save Mitchell Feder's job. Perhaps, if we can work things out in Local 375, we can turn our efforts to bringing peace to some other embattled sectors of the public-sector labor movement. And perhaps The Chief, instead of fanning the flames, can lend a hand.

ARTHUR SCHWARTZ