Tech Guild In Turmoil Over Chapter Votes

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Irregularities in four Civil Service Technical Guild chapter elections during the past month have produced acrimony and charges of election-tampering among the candidates.

CLAUDE FORT: Says it's out of his hands.

In one case, more than half the ballots were slit open before being received by the election committee. In another, dozens of members were removed from the eligible voting list, only to be partially reinstated later by the opposition, forcing a re-run. A third chapter, one of the Guild's biggest, had its balloting delayed by three months as officials argued over the make-up of the membership list. The final chapter decided to void its entire election, in which the opposition won the top officer spots, after discovering that some candidates running for delegate were not members in good standing.

Leaders vs. Insurgents

In each case, the controversy has pitted supporters of top officials of the Guild, which is Local 375 of District Council 37, against those arguing for a change in the local's leadership.

AHMED SHAKIR: In middle of two disputes.

Local 375 President Claude Fort said that the local does not interfere in chapter elections and that appeals are heard by its parent union. "We have about 35 chapters in the local and each one has a chapter election committee," he said. "We encourage them to use the American Arbitration Association when they have elections because that eliminates so many problems."

Giuseppe D'Ancona defeated incumbent President Kursheed Siddiqui with two-thirds of the vote in January in a surprise outcome of Chapter 3's election, which covers Health and Hospitals Corporation employees. Mr. D'Ancona's slate also took the top vice president spots as well as secretary and treasurer.

Voted in Restaurant

Mr. Siddiqui immediately protested after discovering that a few of the members who ran for delegate positions were "agency shop-fee payers," meaning they were not considered members in good standing. He also complained that the election had been run over the Christmas holiday, with ballots mailed out Dec. 18 for a return date of Jan. 3, which didn't give members enough time to return them.

Mr. Siddiqui then held a membership meeting on Feb. 13 where he argued that the election should be re-run, and members voted in favor of the decision. But Mr. D'Ancona says the vote did not reflect the will of the entire membership, since it was held in a restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, instead of at Bellevue Hospital, where most of the members work, or at union headquarters in lower Manhattan. He also believes that the appearance of Local 375 Secretary Ahmed Shakir and Executive Committee Chair George Lawrence at the meeting, both of whom backed Mr. Siddiqui, unfairly influenced the vote.

"We have a major problem here," Mr. D'Ancona said. "[Election Committee Chair] Vijay Kumar, George Lawrence and Ahmed Shakir were trying to coach him as much as possible because they favor him. This is not right, what they have done."

He has filed a complaint with the local's parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with the belief that only the election for delegates should be repeated.

Mr. Siddiqui did not return calls requesting comment. Mr. Shakir said that the vote for a re-run was conducted democratically.

Tainted Ballots

Chapter 37, where Mr. Shakir is also president, encompasses members at the Department of Transportation. Out of 128 ballots returned, 77 were slit open and then stapled shut when they arrived in the local's rented post office box. An investigation by the U.S. Postal Service was inconclusive, and both sides agreed to re-run the election. The chapter held a meeting Jan. 23 to inform members, and the majority of the approximately 60 members who attended voted to re-run the election by having a walk-in vote March 19, instead of a mail ballot. According to the local's bylaws, any candidate who objects to a walk-in vote can demand a mail ballot. Challenger Richard Gwasda says that he was not aware of those rules when the vote was held, but claims that some candidates did object. Mr. Shakir says that there were no objections at the meeting.

Mr. Gwasda has since protested the walk-in ballot, asserting that confining it to the two sites at workplaces in the Wall Street area, which will be open from about 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., will make it difficult for the roughly 20 percent of the membership that works in midtown and at the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridge sites. "It's your right to vote," the 20-year veteran city employee said. "Whether they do or not, that's another matter, but they have to be given the [chance] to cast a ballot."

Objected Too Late?

Mr. Shakir said that Mr. Gwasda objected only in the past week and should have made his opinions clear sooner. He said the fact that 80 percent of the membership worked in or right next to the buildings where the voting would take place made the mail ballot less of an issue. "I have no objection to a mail ballot; we did it the first time," he said. "But it doesn't make sense to do it again and have the same problem."

The democratic woes of Chapters 8 and 32, which both cover members at the Department of Environmental Protection, are interconnected. The former long-time president of the much-larger Chapter 8, Steve Awad, was moved into Chapter 32 in July 2007 after he changed titles. Opposition members in Chapter 8 discovered the change in September and demanded that he step down.

At a September Local 375 delegates meeting, Mr. Awad argued that the two chapters should merge, but the idea was not popular with a majority of members. The long-time union activist, who is supported by the local leadership, then announced he would run for president of Chapter 32.

Accusations Fly

As both chapters held nominations and began the election process, disputes arose over the composition of the membership lists of each chapter. Each side has accused the other of jockeying to ensure that its supporters remained within their chapter.

Chapter 8 held nominations Oct. 25, but ballots were not sent out until March 1 and will be counted March 18. Opposition candidate Harry Donas believes that Acting President Michael Gimbel, who was responsible for producing the membership list, delayed the creation of the list in order to make sure that enough of Mr. Awad's supporters were moved to Chapter 32 so Mr. Awad could win the presidency in his new chapter. Indeed, Chapter 32's membership list shrank from about 170 members to 138 members in November after the local informed the chapter president that it had removed two divisions from Chapter 32 and placed them into Chapter 8.

'Laughable' Charge

Mr. Gimbel, who retired last April and is not running for office, vigorously denied the accusations, calling them "laughable." "Prior to the end of November," he wrote in an e-mail, "the 4 [DEP] chapter membership lists were not valid because the Local 375 membership list software had not been updated in years. I wrote that software 10 years ago. No election could take place without a valid membership list."

He said that the process took longer than usual because DEP was slow in giving him the necessary information. He also asserted that the Post Office moved slowly when he requested a rented mail box and that Mr. Donas delayed the process further in January by asking the local to take over the election process, since according to the bylaws it should have been concluded by Dec. 31. "I was not interested in dragging this situation out any further than necessary and all sides in the election agreed to hand over the responsibility to the Local 375 Election Committee," Mr. Gimbel stated.

But Mr. Donas, an Assistant Chemical Engineer who has worked for the city for 21 years, said that the explanations don't add up. "This is my first foray into politics and running for office," he said. "This thing has been unbelievable. It's been very dirty politics."

Puts Blame on Fort

The veteran city worker also believes that the local's leadership backs his challenger and Mr. Awad's ally, Ian Anderson, and is not blameless. "I think by not taking a stronger approach, Claude Fort has tacitly allowed this to happen," he said.

Mr. Fort said that both sides should work with the local's membership chair to figure out an appropriate list. "Whichever side is unhappy, they try to blame somebody," he said. "This is a democratic process; they elect whoever they want to. We are there for the members. Both sides tried to pull me into their election. I had to make it clear that we don't get involved in chapter elections; it is the members' decision."

Mr. Awad has traded charges with the incumbent Chapter 32 opposition leadership over the composition of the membership list. An AFSCME panel recently ruled in Mr. Awad's favor that the chapter's election committee decision to add 19 members to the membership list was improper. The parent union voided the election in which incumbent President Richard Stadnycki defeated Mr. Awad by 12 votes and ordered the chapter, the local and DC 37 to come up with a final membership list for use in a future election.

The chapter's election committee made the addition after it became aware that the American Arbitration Association was using a list supplied by DC 37, which officials said they suspected was out of date. After looking over the list, the membership committee discovered 19 members missing. AAA agreed to add the members, who then were made aware that they could vote if they requested ballots. It is not clear how many of them did so.

"As far as I'm concerned, the election was above board," said Mr. Stadnycki. "The local is not backing me in winning. They are gerrymandering people out of Chapter 32."

Questions Removal Logic

He noted that the candidate on his slate who won the sergeant-at-arms position, as well as a delegate and an alternate delegate, were removed from the chapter, according to the new list. "If they were members in the last election, why are they not now?" he asked.

Mr. Awad strongly denied that he exerted any undue influence over the membership lists in order to rig things in his favor. "If this statement is correct," he responded in an e-mail, "with my members in this election I would have won completely and wouldn't be protesting this election result. Chapter 8 contains about 700 members while Chapter 32 contains only 145 members. If I had actually violated this rule and had asked my chapter members to vote in this election, there would be no dispute because I would have won outright."

And while he made clear that he believes a merger would improve the chapters' "unity and strength," he noted that several steps were needed for a merger, including a membership vote by both chapters, as well as approval by the local's executive board and delegates.

Three of the chapters will find out who their elected leaderships are this week, although there is no telling how many appeals will be filed once the results are known.