NJ’s rank & file struggle under union’s umbrella

Jul 03, 2010

By: Andria Carter

By JEFF EDELSTEIN
Staff Writer
Ian Spurlock is the kind of state employee most New Jerseyans want to see working for their taxpayer dollar.
Hardworking, intelligent and a believer in limited government.
He also wishes he could work out from under the umbrella of state employee unions, of which he’s not even a full member. For example, as a Department of Labor employee in Disability Determination Services, Spurlock handles three new cases a day. His next shot at a merit-based promotion is years away. This strikes him as wrong.
“I could probably do five or six cases a day,” he said. “If given the opportunity to do that, and know that management would put me on some kind of fast-track for promotion, that would be fantastic. It would also kill the chances of those struggling with three cases a day to ever get promoted. That would allegedly be a bad thing.”
And while it would be foolish to assume Spurlock speaks for most state employees, he does shine a light on an issue few state residents even know exists, namely state employees — or more specifically, people who pay into the state pension system — who have had it with their unions.
Spurlock’s situation — hard worker hamstrung by union rules — is but one example of union blues.
Another, more stark example, is what’s been happening at CWA Local 1033, and the at times nasty and court-mediated battle being waged by a ragtag bunch of disgruntled union members.
Members for Change is headed up by Jesse Averhart and Mary Walker, and their goal is simple: To unseat Rae Roeder, the president of 1033.
Averhart, a former vice president under Roeder, ran an unsuccessful bid for the presidency of 1033 in 2005, and Walker, who called Roeder her “mentor,” has had a more interesting road, having been charged with harassment by Roeder. (The case was settled by mediation.)
One of Averhart’s and Walker’s main problems with their union is the lack of a penny-by-penny financial report.
“We are totally left out of the loop with regard to finances,” Averhart said.
Roeder disagrees — strongly — and insists that not only is there a penny-by-penny report, but that Averhart can “come and see it.”
(Federal and private sector unions are required by the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) to disclose full financial information to both the federal government and their membership each year. State public employee unions are exempt from the LMRDA rules.)
Averhart and his group want to “bring democracy to CWA Local 1033.” Roeder calls them “dissidents.”
And the fighting over money and democracy is but one angle in the battle.
It goes all the way down to communication methods.
“There is no e-mail at the local at all,” said Walker, who used to work directly under Roeder.
“No one is permitted to use it. There is no e-mail in her office. She uses the United States Postal System to share information with the membership.”
Roeder has a simple explanation for her decision to ban e-mail.
“Members have been disciplined by the State of New Jersey for using their e-mail at work. Right now, we have over 50 active cases of members being disciplined,” she said.
“Our phones operate 10 hours a day, and our own studies show that nearly 50 percent of our membership doesn’t have computer access at their homes. Furthermore, e-mails are subpoenable. If anything, we’re protecting our membership by not using written information.”
While high-minded ideals and street-level back-and-forth dominate the discussion at 1033, the simple matter of staying employed has caused a minority of Hamilton Township’s teachers to question their union.
Seventy non-tenured teachers were let go following the end of the recent school year, and at least one of them wonders just who exactly the teachers union was representing.
“Almost all of the non-tenured teachers I work with feel misrepresented by the union,” said the laid off teacher who wished to remain anonymous in hopes of getting re-hired this summer. “I spoke with my union rep, and I was told they were doing everything they can to save my job. So I asked what was being done, because I haven’t seen anyone in the union doing anything to protect my job.”
According to reports in The Trentonian, the 70 teacher jobs could have been saved if the union had accepted a one-year pay freeze for their members.
“The union reps never asked the rank and file about pay freezes or opening up the contract,” the teacher said. “It’s not fair. Why can’t we simply take a vote? I don’t care if I lose 500-to-2, the fact remains we don’t get to have an opinion that matters. What’s the point of having a union without having a say?”
Another laid-off teacher, who commented anonymously at the blog njunion.blogspot.com, wrote their “union rep had absolutely no answers for any of the questions that were asked of her,” and “there are rumors going around that people were chosen based on if they knew anyone in the district.
“If you didn’t have any ties to anyone, than you were cut. The fact remains there were teachers across the district — in the same departments — with less time on the job than the teachers who were cut, but they did not receive (pink) slips.”
The anonymous poster also had a question.
“Do we get any of the union dues back that we paid?”

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 4:25 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.