nothin AFSCME Panel Hears Union Election Complaint | New Haven Independent

AFSCME Panel Hears Union Election Complaint

Melissa Bailey Photo

City parks staffer Piekarz is protesting the election.

A member of AFSCME’s judicial panel heard two and a half hours of testimony Wednesday from city workers about alleged misconduct in the recent election of a president of the city government managers union.

The hearing was triggered by a complaint that Lynn Piekarz (pictured above), an executive administrative assistant to the city parks director, filed with her international union, AFSCME. She accused the victor of the Nov. 13 AFSCME Local 3144 election, incumbent President Cherlyn Poindexter, of violating city policy and union rules during the campaign, including using city email to run her campaign, creating a hostile work environment, and getting involved in preparing the ballot and election itself.

Two dozen city staffers, including Fire Chief Michael Grant and Commission on Equal Opportunities Director Nichole Jefferson, showed up at the downtown Omni Hotel Wednesday for a hearing on the matter hosted by AFSCME. Up in a second-floor York conference room, they listened and gave testimony before Steve Perble, a judicial panel member of AFSCME international.

Perble said he plans to make a decision in the next couple of weeks. He declined to comment on the proceedings and barred the press from the room.

The allegations against Poindexter include that she campaigned on the day of the union election without taking the day off from work and that she used city email to send copious messages about her campaign and campaign flyers (like the one pictured).

At Wednesday’s proceedings, Piekarz presented 250 pages documenting emails Poindexter had sent and received on her city email account regarding her reelection campaign. Several emails contain messages between Poindexter and Jane A. Ciarleglio, executive director of the state Office of Higher Education, using city and state email accounts respectively.

Here’s my new flyer. What do you think?” reads one message from Poindexter to Ciarleglio. The two proceed to discuss via government email the choice and placement of photographs for the flyer.

Poindexter adamantly refused to be quoted for this story.

Piekarz is calling for a new election based on the alleged misconduct. She said she is optimistic about the outcome of her complaint.

I’m hoping that our union becomes more transparent and inviting to everybody,” she said, and not divisive.”

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