Vote to Hire a Fighting Attorney!

Union Meeting, Wednesday April 10, 5 PM, 600 W. Lafayette at Third

 

 

Letter from AFSCME 207 President, John Riehl:

 

I am issuing a call for everyone to attend the next Membership Meeting, Wednesday, April 10, at 5 PM. This meeting is especially important to the following “frozen minimum” titles: Building Attendant, Garage Attendant, Laborer-A, Mechanical Helper, Park Maintenance Helper, Power Plant Helper, Service Guard, Water Systems Helper, and Street Light Maintenance Trainee.

 

A dispute has arisen within Local 207's Executive Board. I was unable to attend the March Executive Board meeting. At that meeting a wrong decision was made that seriously affects our Local. The issue is which attorney the Local should hire for the Frozen Minimum wage dispute. Membership meetings at which quorum is met (that is, where 58 members attend) can vote to change a decision of the Executive Board. And I am asking the membership to do this. This issue involves hundreds of our members and other AFSCME City workers. Come and participate in the discussion and vote.

 

I am supporting the hiring of local attorney George Washington for this case. He is an experienced labor and civil rights attorney, having represented various AFSCME and UAW Locals in Detroit, Flint and State of Michigan since 1977. He was an attorney for Michigan AFSCME Council 25 until 1988 when he was fired for representing me and other AFSCME militants against election frauds and phony union charges which were backed by the top Council officers. His law firm represents the student intervenors in the University of Michigan Law School Affirmative Action case. They have proved in the federal courts how the racist inequality in U.S. public schools needs to be counteracted by university affirmative action programs. Attorney Washington is also a lead attorney in the lawsuit challenging the racist takeover of the Detroit Public Schools by Governor Engler and the State Legislature. Because of his heavy workload he wasn't able to start the frozen minimum case as soon as we would have liked. He also had to put in hours of unpaid work to help the Local to deal with our large debt to the IRS caused by the previous Local 207 administration's failure to file and pay tens of thousands in payroll and social security taxes. Washington's firm just went to federal court for our Local and forced the City to rescind its unconstitutional gag order on city employees. This is the kind of political law firm we need working for us.

 

Several weeks ago Washington filed frozen minimum suits for AFSCME Locals 312 and 214. If Local 207 joins this case, as I suggest it, there will be three Locals splitting the $150 per hour legal bill. That would mean that our Local's costs will only be $50 per hour. If we can add yet other Locals we can share the attorney fees even wider. Washington is charging no more money regardless how many Locals join the suit.

 

The other attorney, the one the Executive Board selected, is John Jeffrey Conway. He has 4 years experience and has taken over his father's employment law firm. His suggested legal approach stands the risk of being dismissed all together because Wages & Hours claims must go to the Michigan Department of Labor. Those cases take a year or more and can collect only one year in missing back pay.

 

Attorney Conway's proposal included a payment arrangement where 1/3 of the members' back pay would be given to the lawyer as a fee. This is outrageous considering that the Water Department itself figured that Local 207 members are owed about $2 million. Attorney Conway's back up position was $150 per hour, with of course, the entire bill paid by Local 207.

 

This issue is so important for us to decide on April 10 that I'm making this special appeal for the members to make this meeting and make the decision.

 

 

How the City Robbed the New Hires

 

Let me explain the origin of this "frozen minimum" problem. The union leadership in the 1995-98 contract gave the City of Detroit a major concession on the starting (or "minimum") wages of 45 various entry level job titles.

 

The starting pay for these titles was "frozen" at the 1995 levels, while all other titles got raises. For example for Water Systems Helpers, who dig up streets and repair water mains and sewers, their starting pay for the last 6 years has been $9.62 per hour. This was the City's version of the infamous "two-tier" wage system. There was a provision in the contract to eventually partially compensate workers by paying them larger than normal step increases, so that they'd reach their title's "maximum" pay rate in six years.

 

Last spring, after the 1998-2001 contract were finally distributed, members and stewards compared their pay rates with the pay chart in the contract and noticed many discrepancies. They noticed that workers hired after January 2000 were making more than those hired earlier. We did our investigation and discovered that the larger than normal step increases for the "frozen minimum" titles were not put in place in 1995, but were put in place in January 2000. Most workers only received the ten cent increases every six months. This means that there are pay rate errors for the "frozen minimum" titles ranging from a few cents to about a dollar per hour. Many workers were underpaid for years and are owed various amounts of back pay. Basically any worker in those titles who was not at maximum pay rate as of July 1,1995 was a victim of this contract violation.

 

The Water Department Human Resources section has agreed that they owe about 460 members and former members about $2 million. Nobody knows the exact amount because the only way to calculate the pay properly is to totally repair the pay rates for each worker, then manually calculate the back pay owed. Part of our effort in the past year has been to get enough staff and overtime in the payroll section to do this tedious work. Also we were able to expose the City's errors during contract negotiations to the point that the City's miserable wage offer did not include the frozen minimum concessions language anymore. In the coming contract these minimum rates need to be increased so that they match the raises of the last two contracts (over 16%).

 

In Solidarity,

 

John Riehl