IBT Lifts Suspension For '237' Election Challenger

GREGORY FLOYD: 'She's still guilty.'

Teamsters Local 237 dissident Eunice Rodriguez has had a suspension for allegedly being involved in a decertification drive overturned by her International union, allowing her to mount a run for the presidency of the local against incumbent Gregory Floyd.

Ms. Rodriguez, a former recording secretary in the union who came within 470 votes of unseating then-President Carl Haynes in the 2004 election, had been caught in an appeals process over her two-year suspension by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Raid on School Agents

The original allegations concerned an effort by the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association to assume representation of Local 237's 4,200 School Safety Agents.

While Ms. Rodriguez admitted to unknowingly faxing a copy of a LEEBA notice from a Local 237 office to LEEBA, she insisted that her name was thereafter used without her knowledge by the other union in an attempt to build its credibility.

A two-year suspension was handed up in May 2007, but last week it was overturned by the general executive board of the International union, which stated in its decision that "Ms. Rodriguez exercised bad judgment, but she did not instigate the objections to the Local's certification."

EUNICE RODRIGUEZ: Eligible to run again.

It ruled that Ms. Rodriguez "should be admonished for her behavior and notified that any future support for, or involvement in, an effort to decertify Local 237, or other interference with the Local's bargaining certifications, will result in her suspension or expulsion."

"They gave me a little slap on the wrist," said Ms. Rodriguez in a phone interview. "The original penalty. . . was much too harsh." She declined to say whether she would run at the top of the dissident slate, which currently includes former business agents Jakwan Rivers and Vincent Lattimore.

Cements Bond

"I had supported them when I could not run, and now that I can run, the support is even stronger between us right now," she said. "It's definitely going to strengthen the slate; the race is going to be on now."

Ms. Rodriguez added that the feel- ings among members she talked to were similar to the last time she ran for the local's presidency. "The members say they didn't elect Gregory Floyd, that he was just thrown in there," she said. Mr. Floyd was chosen to lead the union by its executive board in March 2007 after Mr. Haynes' retirement.

But Mr. Floyd responded that while Ms. Rodriguez's punishment had been changed, the finding of guilt had not. "She was still guilty of trying to have people leave the union," he said in a phone interview. "It's interesting that someone would want to run for union office at the same time as trying to destroy the union from within by having 5,000 members leave Local 237."

Mr. Floyd said that Ms. Rodriguez's actions "speak to the character of a person," saying, "If you're a true member of Local 237, you would not have tried to even participate in helping another union take members from us."

He added that he was "glad that the distraction of everyone asking me about [Ms. Rodriguez's suspension] is over," and that he would "remain focused on trying to do the best job that I can do as President of Local 237 . . . trying to get a contract for members in the Housing Authority, trying to maintain our jobs in the city and trying to maintain our benefits, pensions and health coverage."