Posts tagged Fairness Center
Opinion: Demand more from CT public sector union officials
April 15, 2024 // As soon as you’re hired, the state sends your contact information, including your home address, to a union you’ve never joined and to union officials you’ve never met. The union also has the right to meet with you for at least 30 minutes, even one-on-one, to ensure you join and start paying dues. After that, every three months, union officials can get your updated personal phone numbers and email address from the state agency where you work, regardless of whether you become a union member. If you can withstand union officials’ high-pressure marketing pitch, you may face coercion once on the job.
Union Corruption Case Exposes Missing Millions in Pennsylvania
April 4, 2024 // In Pennsylvania, a union corruption case has revealed that officials misused $1.8 million in funds for a trust that remains unaccounted for, leading to the destruction of evidence regarding its existence. The case, initiated in 2020 by The Fairness Center on behalf of Cory Yedlosky, William Weyant, and Chris Taylor—three workers at a state prison—alleges the misappropriation of $20,000 by the treasurer of the local chapter of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association between 2009 and 2018. Despite raising concerns with union executive board members in Harrisburg, the workers’ complaints were disregarded. An internal forensic audit later revealed over $400,000 in credit charges for personal expenses by local and state union leaders, including a $12,000 Rolex, Miami Dolphins game tickets, $3,000 bar tabs, and luxury golf trips. In 2023, five senior union officials were charged with forgery and theft, with court orders to repay nearly $82,000, of which about $23,000 has been returned.
Legal documents say union funneled $1.8M into lost trust fund
April 2, 2024 // New legal documents filed recently in an ongoing union corruption case in Pennsylvania say officials funneled $1.8 million into a trust fund that’s yet to be recovered and then destroyed evidence of its existence. The lawsuit, filed in 2020 by The Fairness Center on behalf of three workers at a state prison in Huntingdon, accused the treasurer of the local chapter of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association of misappropriating $20,000 between 2009 and 2018. The three workers – Cory Yedlosky, William Weyant, and Chris Taylor – even shared their concerns with union executive board members in Harrisburg but were ignored, according to court documents.
Pennsylvania state court rules against union in worker dispute
February 27, 2024 // “AFSCME officials thought they could get away with sabotaging Penny’s grievance and openly discriminating against her, but the Commonwealth Court has ensured her complaint will be heard,” he said. “Union officials didn’t want to represent our client because she wasn’t a union member, but Pennsylvania law says public-sector unions have a duty to fairly represent everyone in a bargaining union – members and nonmembers alike."
NYC profs see Supreme Court as ‘only hope’ in fight with ‘antisemitic’ teachers union
January 26, 2024 // In 2021, one such teachers union, Professional Staff Congress/CUNY (PSC), adopted a "Resolution in Support of the Palestinian People" which the group of six professors viewed as antisemitic, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. These professors chose to then resign from the union, but under state law are still required to affiliate with and be represented in bargaining by that same union. "My family and I suffered severe anti-Semitic harassment and persecution at the hands of the Soviet Union for over fifteen years," professor of mathematics Avraham Goldstein said in a statement. "I hoped it was all in my past. But now I am forced to associate with a union that makes anti-Semitic political statements in my name without my permission or consent."
Federal lawsuit filed against Hartford Public Schools over privilege training
January 11, 2024 // “Over the last several years, the Superintendent, with the backing and approval of the Board, has instituted or enforced policies, procedures, and customs to advance critical race theory in Hartford Public Schools, and to force employees like Mr. Grande to acquiesce to that theory,” the complaint states. Grande was subsequently investigated by the school for the comments he made during the breakout session, with Director of Arts and Wellness for HPS Tracy Avicolli, who had facilitated the training, accusing him of “inappropriate and aggressive comments” and indicating that Grande was under investigation in an email sent to everyone who was part of the breakout session except him. Grande claims that the subsequent investigation, which was revealed to him months later, contained misrepresentations, false statements attributed to him and “coached” comments from two other participants.
Former corrections officers’ union officials charged with theft of union funds
August 29, 2023 // Back in 2019, corrections officers and then PSCOA members, Cory Yedlosky and Chris Taylor, initiated an investigation of the local union SCI Huntingdon’s finances, finding thousands of dollars in transactions that violated the union’s own financial procedures. However, then-PSCOA president Bloom “blew off” the allegations. Yedlosky and Taylor were dissatisfied with the union’s handling of their investigation and chose to resign their union membership as a result. Then, in 2020 they filed a lawsuit against the union. A month later, state police arrested former SCI Huntingdon treasurer Bryan Peroni for writing checks from the union’s accounts to himself and another union official, totaling nearly $30,000. The officers’ lawsuit, Yedlosky v. PSCOA, ultimately led Pennsylvania state police to file charges against Bloom and four other union officials last month.
This group says it keeps federal unions accountable to their members
August 14, 2023 //
Hartford teachers union denied arbitration in grievance case
June 13, 2023 // Grande contends that he did nothing wrong. In an op-ed published by the Hartford Courant, Grande says that following an online training about “Identity & Privilege,” he was assigned to a breakout room with several other teachers and asked to give his opinion. “So I gave it, honestly and professionally,” Grande wrote. “Apparently because I disagreed with the training’s implications, two teachers complained. Months later the administration informed me I was under investigation,” Grande wrote. Grande says he was issued a written reprimand and required to undergo further sensitivity training under threat of termination. Grande had been a HFT union member most of his career and says he helped negotiate contracts but resigned from the union in 2018.
NEW YORK: Farmington employee sues town over labor union membership
June 12, 2023 // Hinman started working for the town in 2014 and joined the Teamsters in 2018. When he tried to resign his union membership in 2021, union officials refused to allow it and continued to deduct dues from his wages without his consent, Hinman claims. The lawsuit claims Hinman’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated, as well as his rights under New York state laws. Hinman wants his union membership resignation to be acknowledged and his dues refunded, with interest.