Clear Tech Guild Of Poor Representation

The Board of Collective Bargaining has dismissed an improper practice petition filed by a member of the Civil Service Technical Guild that alleged that her union had misrepresented her in an arbitration proceeding after she was dismissed for refusing to continue her duties at the Department of Environmental Protection.

MARLENE GOLD: No sign of bad faith by union.

Cleopatra Rosioreanu, a Civil Engineer, had been assigned a new task in October 2006 which she regarded as a "demotion" from structural engineer to distribution engineer. As part of her new duties, Ms. Rosioreanu was required to learn a computer program called Fast Look, which she never did. This led to a backlog in work and when approached by her supervisor, Ms. Rosioreanu said, "I don't want to work here, and I don't want to learn Fast Look."

The situation escalated as Ms. Rosioreanu was given more assignments, and in November 2006 she made ethnic remarks to her supervisor. She refused to perform her new assignments, saying, "I must be out of this unhealthy situation as soon as possible before I become irreversibly sick," signing a form saying that she refused to do work.

In January 2007, the DEP held an informal conference on the matter, charging Ms. Rosioreanu with insubordination, prejudicial conduct, and neglect of duties. Her District Council 37 Local 375 representative advised her not to respond in writing to the charges, as a written response could be used against her. After the conference, it was recommended that Ms. Rosioreanu be terminated.

Local 375 then filed grievances on her behalf, appealing up to Step III, although internally it advised her to consider performing her new duties, as it could lead to her reinstatement. But Ms. Rosioreanu instead took sick leave from January until July of 2007, citing "panic attacks," "depression" and "anxiety." In her Step III hearing, Ms. Rosioreanu was represented by Local 375 Second Vice President Michelle Keller, who said that she should prepare her case in writing only if she felt the need.

Regaining Job Didn't Enthuse Her

After the Step III appeal failed, the case went to arbitration, where Ms. Rosioreanu was represented by a union-appointed lawyer, Mitchel B. Craner. In an e-mail to Mr. Craner, she admitted that "regaining the position that I refused is not an incentive to me." Mr. Craner tried to argue that Ms. Rosioreanu had not been adequately trained for her new duties and that her remark about the prevalence of Irish supervisors in her unit "was not offered as a racial or ethnic slur, but merely as the hard truth." The grievance was, however, ultimately denied.

Ms. Rosioreanu's petition to the BCB alleged that her union representation by Ms. Keller and Mr. Craner had been improper, that she had been told to not put her grievance in writing, and that Mr. Craner had ignored her complaints about demotion, retaliation, accelerated termination, and the loss of her health insurance. The union argued that it had made it a practice to avoid written grievances, and that its representation had been perfectly fair.

The BCB, chaired by Marlene A. Gold, found that the union "enjoys wide latitude in the handling of grievances as long as it exercises discretion with good faith and honesty," and that Ms. Rosioreanu failed to establish any sort of bad faith in Local 375's handling of her case, thus dismissing her petition.