Accusing the largest labor union on Duke's campus of inadequately representing its constituents and coercing members into accepting a smaller wage increase than in previous contracts, a dining services employee and member of Local 77 has filed charges challenging his union's new contract.
Days after this summer's ratification of the new contract--which provided for wage increases totaling 6.25 percent over the next three years--Melton Summerville submitted his accusations against Local 77 to the national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Summerville had a hearing with the national union Oct. 8 in front of John Seferian, chair of AFSCME's Judicial Panel. Seferian's decision on the case is still pending. Members of the Local 77 negotiating team, however, did not attend the hearing.
Summerville is accusing Local 77 of failing to present a genuine offer to its constituents after the summer negotiations. The union represents about 950 employees in housekeeping, campus dining, grounds keeping and animal care.
"[Local 77 President Carlos] McCovey told us at the vote that Duke had made two offers. One was for a 2.4 percent raise and one was for 2 percent, but the 2.4 percent had strings attached," he said. "They said they would deny health benefits to new hires in Local 77 if we took the 2.4 percent."
Summerville said he did not believe the University had actually made this offer, and that McCovey had presented it at the vote in order to coerce union members into rejecting the more substantial pay increase. McCovey could not be reached for comment despite repeated phone calls during the last several weeks.
"Whatever the union did, they did it for a reason," Summerville said, adding that he thought the actions amounted to racketeering.
Documents proving that the University had in fact made such an offer should exist, Summerville said, because a recording secretary should have been taking minutes during the negotiations. He further noted that AFSCME's constitution guarantees his right to access those documents because they are union property and thus open to all union members. He never saw the documents, however, because they were ones that union representatives were to bring to the Oct. 8 hearing.
"They were ordered to turn over some documents that were key to my case, but when [the negotiating team] didn't show up, the documents didn't show up either," he said.
"They had a chance to refute my arguments, but they chose not to take it. The only reason I can think that someone wouldn't show is that they couldn't defend themselves against the charges," he added.
Michael Gibson, Local 77's principal negotiator and official spokesperson, declined to comment on the team's absence from the proceedings. He also declined to comment on Summerville's charges or on the summer negotiations.
Summerville, who has been an employee at the University since 1988 and was once honored for his perfect attendance, said he was not surprised by the union's unwillingness to communicate, due to the severity of his charges. He added, however, that he did not approve of the union's secrecy, especially with regards to the negotiating process.
"Secrecy is something that hurts the union as a whole, but once they reached an agreement this summer, they kept it a secret up until June 30, when they called for the ratification vote," he said. "We had no idea what we were going to vote on until we got there."
In addition to coupling lower wage increases with benefits for new hires, the union used the looming expiration of the previous three-year contract to pressure its constituents into ratifying the new contract last summer, Summerville said.
"McCovey told us that we could send the contract back, but we'd lose our jobs in the morning," he said. "My mouth dropped open. Why didn't they put any safeguards in to prevent Duke from firing workers once the contract expired?"
He added that past negotiations have continued after their preceding contracts have expired, so the June 30 deadline should not have been an issue.
Despite Summerville's belief that the summer negotiations were tainted by corruption on the union's part, he said he was not out to indict the University.
"I know that these charges are automatically going to put a cloud of suspicion over the Duke negotiating team as well, but that is not why I filed the charges," he said. "When the negotiating clock starts running out, that's when the shakedown starts. If I worked for the University I would probably do the same thing, but the union is different. The union is supposed to fight within all legal limits for our rights."
University officials said they had not been notified of Summerville's complaints regarding the union's negotiating team.
"I have no knowledge of this matter and this is union business that is best addressed by them," Vice President for Human Resources Clint Davidson wrote in an e-mail. Davidson headed up the University's negotiating team during the summer.
Adding another twist to the affair, Summerville said he is currently being denied access to the transcripts from the Oct. 8 hearing because AFSCME has not yet paid the court recorder.
"The problem is there are a lot of illegal things going on, and that's why the union doesn't want these transcripts going out," he said. "It's obvious there's a cover-up going on--you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out."
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