ELECTION APPEALS MASTER
IN RE:
MARK CAPPER, WILLIAM PACULA and ANTHONY GENTILE, Protestors.
06 Elec. App. 054 (KC)
This matter is an appeal from the Election Supervisor's decision 2006 ESD 295 issued June 2, 2006.
A hearing was held before me on June 14, 2006. The following persons were heard by way of teleconference: Jeffrey J. Ellison, Esq. and Steven Newmark on behalf of the Election Supervisor, Bruce Bodner, Esq. on behalf of Robert Keller, President of Local 384, Matthew Condron, Secretary Treasurer, Bobby Gains, Vice President and Chris O'Donnell and Brian Mitchell, Trustees, Nancy B. G. Lassen, Esq. on behalf of Teamsters Local 384 and Mark Capper the protester.
Three members of the Integrity Slate, seeking election as delegate or alternate delegates in Local 384, filed protests asserting that incumbent officers and rival candidates retaliated against them through the initiation of disciplinary charges, because they had circulated campaign flyers containing a reference to the claimed misuse of a union credit card by one of the incumbent slate members.
The Election Supervisor investigated, and concluded that the purposed basis for the disciplinary charges, that the protesters had purloined the Local's property and endangered the integrity of the Local's financial condition, was completely bogus. He further concluded that the official leveling of phony charges and real punishment by the incumbent officers was politically motivated, blatantly retaliatory and transparently driven by the protesters' protected electronic challenge that raised the issue of union credit card abuse by one of the incumbent candidates.
The record conclusively supports and establishes the Election Supervisor's findings. Indeed, it is uncontested that trustee Chris O'Donnell on the incumbent slate had in fact been ordered to repay the Local for an improper use of his union credit card. Furthermore, the credit card receipt related to this transaction and copied into the insurgents' campaign flyer, was not stolen or otherwise misappropriated by Capper, an elected trustee with oversight responsibilities with respect to the union's finances. The claims made by the incumbent officers that the possession of the receipt was a criminal act, are ludicrous, and reflect an arrogance that naturally leads to the cynical manipulation of the disciplinary power to discredit political opponents.
This conduct, properly denounced by the Election Supervisor, was a grave disservice to the membership of Local 384, and the democratic values embedded in the Election Rules and pursued through many elections by the International Brotherhood and the United States Courts.
Counsel for the incumbent officers and the Local make a number of arguments, none either well-informed or persuasive; that the Election Supervisor's investigation was characterized by procedural deficiencies. They are rejected. The Election Rules which govern here have flexibility, common sense and practicality as their hallmarks. Time constraints are not rigid, charging notices are not required, sworn deposition are not taken, and of course, months (or indeed sometimes years) that are often characteristic durations of LMRDA cases, grand jury investigations and civil proceedings in federal court, are not possible here.
There have been not especially convincing bleatings about due process rights "under the LMRDA and Union Constitution," and indeed counsel's papers cite not a single section of or single case under either. There are also numerous incantations of the boiler plate "as a matter of fact and law"…etc, etc, etc. Contrary to what counsel for the appellants' apparently believes, Letter dated June 7, 2006 at 4, Election Rules investigations are NOT disciplinary proceedings.
More pointedly, at the hearing conducted in this matter, neither counsel for the appellants effectively challenged, no less controverted, the factual record established by the Election Supervisor.
The decision is in all respects affirmed.
SO ORDERED:
__/s/_____________________
Kenneth Conboy
Election Appeals Master
Dated: June 26, 2006