Guild's Leading Demagogue

To the Editor:

This is in response to the letter from Mitch Feder entitled "Unwarranted Guild Attack" in the July 25 edition of The Chief.

I'll dispense with replying to Brother Feder's red-baiting attack on me in his letter. I am honored by such an attack. Maybe Feder's Republican Party buddies will applaud the red-baiting, but I don't believe the same can be said for a union member audience.

The rest of Brother Feder's slanderous letter cannot be ignored, however. In the last paragraph of the letter he states: "Now that Mr. Gimbel is on the local's payroll (two days per week), can it be said that Mr. Gimbel has now become President Claude Fort's defender by attacking the Guild's most outstanding democratic reformer?" Brother Feder, you misrepresent your real title because you are actually "the Guild's most outstanding demagogue."

The claim by Brother Feder that I am on the union's payroll is a slander against me and against President Claude Fort. Brother Feder is an inveterate liar. This time he's gone too far. In the past he's lied by conflating one thing with another and hoping the members won't be able to perceive the "hidden lie." This time he's made a specific charge, and I intend to make him fully accountable. He's an executive board member and a Local 375 Delegate. As such, he's had in his possession and discussed the treasurer's reports and the Local 375 budget that includes the salaries of the union staff. He can't claim "confusion" on this issue. It is an outright lie and an outright slander against President Claude Fort and me.

As such, I will be bringing Brother Feder up on charges. I will demand that he be kicked out of the union. Most of the active Local 375 members are just fed up with Feder's destroying union meeting after union meeting with his filibustering and creation of chaos from the floor of those meetings. Feder's crossed the line with this slanderous lie. Let Mitch Feder stand before the AFSCME Judicial Panel and defend the undefendable lie about me being on Claude Fort's payroll.

Brother Feder also lies about the supposedly "secret" two days' release time for Steve Awad at Department of Environmental Protection that he supposedly "uncovered." Brother Feder knows that the official release time allotted to each union is by agreement with the city Office of Labor Relations. Every union is subject to the same agreement. Those days, and only those days, are determined by the union. The agreement with DEP was an internal matter that resulted from a meeting with DEP Commissioner Ward. That meeting was arranged by, and attended by, District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts after urging from Steve Awad, Claude Fort and myself. The meeting concerned the huge backlog of more than 300 out-of-title grievances at DEP, resulting from our determination to make sure that members at DEP be paid for the work they were doing.

The two days' (Tuesday and Thursday) release for Steve Awad, as granted by DEP as a result of that meeting, was no secret. How could it be a secret? In order that the 300-plus members with existing grievances and all members who potentially might have future grievances were to become aware of the released dates, Steve Awad had to officially notify all the Local 375 members in DEP by e-mail. In addition, Steve Awad was required to sign in and out, as usual, and was required by his boss to place a sign on the door of his office that members were required to see Steve only on Tuesday and Thursday.

Steve and I are very proud of the over $10 million in out-of-title grievance awards that we won as a result. Tell me one other union representative, in my union or any other DC 37 union, who can make that claim.

Brother Feder: Stop being a crybaby. If you did your job as well as we have done our jobs, it wouldn't be so necessary for you to be such a whiner.

As to Brother Feder's claim to have been in charge of the union's response to the clean-up at Ground Zero, it will be news to hundreds of our members who worked at Ground Zero and to the officers and delegates who, like me, were there when the decisions were made. Brother Feder's outrageous claim is simply laughable. It is true that during the time in question, Brother Feder constantly tried to take credit for everything. That is Brother Feder's "method of operation." Feder is a very small person who tries to "puff up" his "resume" with work actually done by others.

It is ironic that Brother Feder, who constantly tries to prevent union functioning at every meeting I attend, claims to be the one actually doing all the work. The readers of The Chief should know that Brother Feder was fired by Local 375 as the Anti-Privatization chair for many reasons, including incompetence.

In addition, the claim by Brother Feder that President Bush had nothing to with the destruction of public housing in New Orleans because it "was done under the direct order of the New Orleans Housing Authority Board" is just another lie in defense of President Bush and in defense of Brother Feder's opposition to my resolution opposing the destruction of public housing in New Orleans.

 

Here's the title of an article published on Dec. 3, 2007 (go to commondreams.org): "HUD Sends New Orleans Bulldozers and $400,000 Apartments for the Holidays." Here's the first paragraph of that article: "On the 12th day before Christmas, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is planning to unleash teams of bulldozers to demolish thousands of low-income apartments in New Orleans. Despite Katrina causing the worst affordable housing crisis since the Civil War, HUD is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4,600 public housing subsidized apartments and replace them with 744 similarly subsidized units — an 82-percent reduction. HUD is in charge and one HUD employee makes all the local housing authority decisions. HUD took over the local housing authority years ago — all decisions are made in Washington D.C. HUD plans to build an additional 1,000 market-rate and tax-credit units — which will still result in a net loss of 2,700 apartments to New Orleans — the remaining new apartments will cost an average cost of over $400,000 each."

Brother Feder: your opposition to my resolution is a betrayal of your own members at the Housing Authority. For that alone, your members at the Housing Authority have every right to kick you out of office.

One final note: Brother Feder claims that Local 375 members would be better off bargaining separate from DC 37. Two days ago, in an e-mail to our members, Brother Feder stated, "Last week at the specially called summer delegates' meeting, the delegates, led by a very boisterous group of Guild officers and Chairs who receive thousands of dollars via DC 37 stipends, was able to convince the majority of delegates to vote down using the Guild's own Collective Bargaining Certificate ... The vote was more than 2 to 1 against negotiating directly with the city."

Brother Feder: Stop whining. You lost the vote. That's called "democracy," but for a demagogue like you, "democracy" is only valid if they vote with you.

MIKE GIMBEL

Editor's note: Mr. Gimbel is a delegate of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375, AFSCME to the AFL-CIO New York City Central Labor Council.