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.”
Cherlyn Poindexter has to be the strongest 3144 union president ever. Everyone, who knows Cherlyn knows full well that she fights for her members and for their rights. This complaint by this Park's person is so frivolous and its roots come from the fact that certain people, who think that they deserve raises, haven't gotten them. The complainer has been spurred by the disgruntled employee, who has been wanting the raise. Members put their names before a union committee, who reviews requests for reclassifications. The reclassification committee decides which of these requests have merit. Cherlyn doesn't even sit on the committee, although she reviews the committee's decisions at the final stage. And, in the past she has vehemently rejected requests from the DeStefano Administration that certain people get reclassed. She has said many times that it would not be fair to skip over people, who have been on the list longer. This issue is just a matter of sour grapes. The complainers claim that Cherlyn threatened members to either vote for her, or that they would never see a raise. Well, aside from the reclass committee, raises are contractual so Cherlyn wouldn't have any reason to threaten anyone. Plus, 282 people voted, and the election was really close. If people were afraid not to vote for Cherlyn, they sure didn't exhibit that when they went to the polls. That vote was really close. These members should be ashamed of themselves. Cherlyn is the best union president ever. She doesn't fold for anyone. These people should pray that they are never in a city jam. But if they are, my bet is that Cherlyn will help them. She does her job and even though she could collect a salary, she refused and does it for free. She has integrity. She would never invent issues just to dirty-up somebody else. The disgruntled try to manipulate the election/his own raise.