E-Mail and Cert. Mail RRR
Jesse J. Averhart
23 North Lenape Ave.
Trenton, NJ 08618
June 25, 2010
Christopher M. Shelton, VP
CWA, District 1
80 Pine St., 37th Floor
New York, New York 10005
Dear Mr. Shelton:
Thank you for your immediate e-mail response of 6/15/10, to my inquiry regarding
the status of 5 outstanding complaints filed with your office 11/07/08.
Pursuant to your response, please accept this as a timely appeal of CWA
Prosecutor Gail Mason-Massey’s findings regarding said appeals, submitted within
15 days of notice of your decision. Though dated 3/29/10, I did not receive notice of
this decision until 6/15/10. Notably, it appears you encountered mail delivery
problems in receiving Prosecutor Mason-Massey’s findings.
As you are aware, the purpose of filing the complaints with your office was to force
Local 1033 to put said complaints on the agenda for a membership vote, per the
Constitution. You in fact had to order compliance with the CWA Constitution by the
Local and reserved or held in abeyance your level of review of the complaints if
either party wished to appeal the membership/Local final decision. This is
consistent with CWA Constitution.
As you are further aware, only the Election Complaint was brought before the
membership.
Prosecutor Mason-Massey’s findings on the complaints were:
The complaints were not properly brought before your office. After the vote by the
Local 1033 membership, the appeals are now properly before you! Internal Appeals
Procedure, C. Appeal. Before the Local membership vote, the point is conceded:
yes, the complaints would have been prematurely before you.
All complaints were voted on by the membership. They were not!
“CWA Local 1033 Bylaws...[was] last revised and adopted January 28, 1999.” It
was not! The CWA Union should have a copy of the last revision of Local 1033
Bylaws, the last revision was 2004 and reprinted in 2005.
All complaints were characterized as “policy decisions of the Executive Board of
Local 1033.” They are not! The fact is that all 5 complaints allege violations “of the
CWA Constitution, Local By-laws or the rights and privileges of members.”
Sacrosanct rights which cannot be abridged or violated by fiat or whim of Local
1033 “policy decisions. “
FACT – The CWA Constitution mandates strict compliance in function. As a
deterrent, violations are punishable by penalty of revocation of a Local’s charter for
neglecting or refusing to:
Represent Workers - One of the intents of the Constitution and Local Bylaws is that
an elected Executive Vice President provide: representation in some capacity to
the membership as assigned by the President, and; continuity of
leadership/representation if succession to the presidency was required. The
Executive VP of this Local has not been properly prepared to ascend to the
Presidency of Local 1033. Evidenced by the fact that she disagreed with the
President and was exiled back to her state job although she was in an elected
position.
Establishing a program to keep members informed of union activities – This is a
5000+ member Local, not a 50 member Local. The website presence maintained by
the Roeder Administration absolutely does not keep members informed of union
activities. The 1033 website is now updated with mostly frivolous non-sense, and
this only at the behest of dissenting members. There is no interactive exchange of
information with the membership, such as e-mail, even though such communication
was negotiated in the collective negotiation agreement to utilize the employers e-
mail system to communicate important union activities. NO email option exists for
members who require an immediate response regarding ANY issue or concern.
Almost all communication remains verbal. Why? Because Roeder said so! The
Board are just bobbleheads, nodding in agreement with whatever!
Standing Committees – The Constitution mandates that all Locals establish and
maintain actively functioning: Organizing and Political/Community Action
Committees, amongst others. These constructs, combined with representation,
establish the purported cornerstone of this Union: Organizing, Political/Community
Action and Representation.
Under the 14 year administration of Rae Roeder, Local 1033 has been absent these
basic committees to date.
As a result of filing these complaints, in addition to many other similar charges,
Roeder finally relinquished last year, 2009, by forming unknown committees to give
the appearance of compliance with the Constitution and Local Bylaws. Note: the
National Union took no action despite repeated requests for intervention in this
and other matters.
For all intents and purposes, members are not informed of the Local Union’s
interactive standing committee union activities. They are not on the website nor
have members been advised of their existence, let alone purpose, in any
manner.
Members are advised of union activities only when the Roeder administration
sends out costly mailings with little or no substantive information. Members do not
know their representatives, standing committees, members of standing
committees if they exist, the 1033 bylaws or anything else for that matter. They are
purposely kept in the dark.
Members have a right and privilege to know the exact disbursements of their union
dues – Neither the Constitution nor Local Bylaws mandate transparency thru
itemization of financial disbursements of this public worker Local. Instead, the only
requirement is generalized/vanilla audit reports. This is in stark contrast with
Locals which represent private sector workers, who provide these annual audit
reports and comprehensive financial disclosures for public scrutiny. http://www.dol.
gov/olms/regs/compliance/rrlo/lmrda.htm
We demand enforcement of this right and privilege by the National Union, to order
comprehensive financial disclosure by Local 1033 beyond the narrow scope of the
CWA Constitution and Local By-law requirements.
COMMENTARY
We’ve reached the stage in this sordid affair where we can be candid. But first, a
backdrop:
According to a January 10, 2010 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics Report, 12.3% of the U.S. workforce was unionized in 2009. Compellingly,
“[m]ore public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private
sector employees (7.4 million), despite there being 5 times more wage and salary
workers in the private sector.” http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Another unit of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Office of Labor-Management
Standards (OLMS) administers and enforces provisions of the Labor-Management
Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA). The LMRDA primarily promotes
union democracy and financial integrity in private sector labor unions by setting
standards for union officer elections, union trusteeships and regarding safeguards
for union assets. The LMRDA promotes labor union and labor-management
transparency through reporting and disclosure requirements for labor unions (and
their officials), which are maintained online as public information. http://www.dol.
gov/olms/
Even with Federal oversight of private sector labor unions, corruption is rampant.
See LMRDA Enforcement Actions. http://www.dol.
gov/olms/regs/compliance/enforcement_1.htm
Conversely, as you are well aware, public sector local unions which do not
represent private sector workers do not fall under the strict scrutiny of the OLMS.
Is there an advantage to organizing oversight-free public worker unions for
maintaining the status quo to effectuate political expediency, the opposite of
democracy? The only recourse available to an aggrieved member of this local is a
dead end review, whitewashed by the National Union.
This has been evidenced again by the most recent (sic) investigation by Prosecutor
Mason-Massey, whose findings were severely lacking in prosecutorial ethics in
defending the Union Constitution and thus, the rights and privileges of the
members of this Local. Indeed, her unsupported or unjudicious conclusions are
tantamount to prosecutorial misconduct.
Curiously, the constitution does not explicitly or implicitly require a complainant to
appeal the decision of a prosecutor. Rather, it is incumbent upon the VP to accept,
reject or modify this type of unsophisticated attempt at manipulation prior to
forwarding same to a complainant.
Consistent thereto, based upon overall National Union’s oversight neglect, Rae
Roeder brazenly and egregiously usurps democracy at this Local Union by: not
conducting secret ballot voting of officers; not maintaining standing committees
for member participation; not maintaining a program to keep members informed of
union activities; claims organizing expenditures when she hasn’t organized any
members during her entire tenure, and; expending members’ dues without any
semblance of accountability (and this union has the audacity to solicit a dues
hike!).
As a result of parent unions’ utter failure to provide oversight of public worker
locals, 13 states have so far enacted public worker right to know legislation, state
legislation which mirrors the LMRDA.
Dissenting members of this local will tirelessly advocate that New Jersey become
the 14th state to enact public worker right to know legislation. http://www.effwa.
org/files/pdf/Washington%20Worker%20Right-To-Know%20Briefing%20Packet.pdf .
This reports encapsulates the bondage of the members of this local under Roeder.
See model legislation at the end of this report.
Based upon the foregoing, I look forward to your response.
/s/ Jesse J. Averhart
Jesse J. Averhart
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Shelton's response recreated here
July 1, 2010
Brother (Groans) Averhart:
I received an e-mail appeal from you on June 25, 2010. The e-mail appeal said it
was also sent "Certified Mail RRR." You should be aware that we do not accept e-
mailed appeals but since I still have not received the U.S. mail copy, I am going to
answer the appeal as if I had.
In your appeal you state that you did not receive my March 29, 2010 answer to your
appeal. You also state that the five complaints were not put before the membership
of Local 1033 as I ordered. You admit that the five complaints were not properly
before me when you first made them.
I have no choice but to rul your appeal untimely. Even if you didn't receive my
March 29, 2010 letter which I find highly suspect, if the five complaints were not
put before the membership last March or as everyone except you agrees they
were, it was incumbent upon you to appeal the members' decision or the "fact" that
Local 1033 defied my order to put the "five collateral complaints" before the
membership, at the time.
Either way, your June 25, 2010 appeal is completely untimely.
If you wish to appeal my decision you may do so in writing to CWA President Larry
Cohen.........
Chris Shelton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COMMENTARY:
Basically, what Mr. Shelton is saying is that the appeals are untimely and the
Roeder administration can continue to violate the Constitution. However, Mr.
Shelton fails to understand the basic construct of the constitution, to wit, that
once the National Union is made aware of a constitutional violation, there is no
untimely appeal and can order compliance at anytime as provided in said
constitution.
After 6 years of this type of response from the National Union, one becomes
hesitant---knowing the futility of these appeals to apparent uninformed leaders. But,
for the record, I will appeal this decision to President Cohen for further evidence of
complicity.
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