THIS HAS GOT TO STOP
One of the union administration issues we are not going to let go of is where a union president fires a long-time staff member without appeal rights or severance pay. The examples of abuse just keep coming. For instance, a union staff supervisor, let’s call her Monica, after 14 years working for a union was called in and summarily fired by the National President (NP). Her “offense” was that when visiting a local on business, she got into a conversation with the local officials who asked about the NP’s health. The NP was furious that she had talked about his health with members although his particular health problem was obvious to anyone. He announced that he could no longer trust her and had her escorted to her office to pick up personal items and then walked out the front door. No written charges, no appeal right, no severance pay, and an employment record that now says she was fired.
Union officials can get away with this because staff members not covered by a collective bargaining agreement are at-will employees. They can be fired for any reason or no reason at all—unless the union members insist that ALL staff members have the same rights to appeal a dismissal.
Back in 2023 we posted an article entitled, “Beware The Black And White Top Union Leader.” It was about the reality that union executives are no different than any other CEOs. They can be just as unfair, malicious, and evil as anyone else. We advised union members to push to amend their constitutions to put the same restraints on the NP’s power to discipline supervisory and confidential staff members as the non-supervisory staff have through their union contract. We even included a typical amendment they could put forth at the next national board meeting or convention.
Restraining union leaders from following their anger of the moment is not a bad thing. In fact, it protects the union members. First, if unprotected supervisory staff can be fired because they failed to carry out an illegal order to deny some local official their rights under law then those staffer are a tool for the NPs to abuse their power and the law without getting caught. Second, when someone has been with a union for years that union has invested tons of money in developing them. Letting an NP toss all that money out the window without some review of that decision is reckless. Imagine the reaction if the NP tossed a$250,000 printer in the trash because of a paper jam.
AFGE deserves credit for amending its constitution to provide supervisory and confidential staffers the protections of an open appeal right.
The final thing I will say about the need to correct this flaw in unions is that if you think that Elon Musk firing thousands of feds for no reason other than his own personal vendetta is crazy, if not immoral, then why are you letting your union leadership have the power to do the same.
