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Office of the Election Supervisor for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters

OFFICE OF THE ELECTION SUPERVISOR

for the

INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS

 

IN RE: JOE DARMENTO,                         )           Protest Decision 2016 ESD 285

                                                                        )           Issued: September 23, 2016

            Protestor.                                           )           OES Case No. P-318-070616-MW   

____________________________________)                      

Joe Darmento, member of Local Union 2727 and candidate for International office on the Teamsters United slate, filed a pre-election protest pursuant to Article XIII, Section 2(b) of the Rules for the 2015-2016 IBT International Union Delegate and Officer Election (“Rules”).  The protest alleged that Local Union 2727 elected trustee violated the Rules by distributing campaign material using his official local union email address.

            Election Supervisor representative Joe Childers investigated this protest.

Findings of Fact and Analysis

On July 5, 2016, Ed Gronkiewicz sent blast campaign emails to Local Union 2727 members, disparaging protestor Darmento’s candidacy for International office as well as the Teamsters United slate, and promoting the Hoffa-Hall 2016 slate.  Gronkiewicz sent the same message in three separate batches to a total of 118 addresses.  Gronkiewicz obtained these addresses from campaign emails Darmento had sent during the local union’s delegates and alternate delegates election.[1] 

Gronkiewicz is an elected trustee of Local Union 2727 and a member of the local union executive board.  He does not work full-time for the local union.  His name and photo appear on the local union’s website.  Unlike most of the other members of the local union executive board, who use email addresses that end in a “local 2727.org” domain name, the email address listed for Gronkiewicz on the local union’s website is his personal gmail account.  He stated to our investigator that he has only the one gmail account, which he uses for personal communications.

Gronkiewicz told our investigator that he sent the email blasts from his personal computer on personal time.  There is no contrary evidence. 

Protestor Darmento complains that Gronkiewicz’s use of the same email address to send campaign material that is listed for him on the local union’s website constitutes an impermissible use of union resources.  On the facts presented here, we disagree.  The email address Gronkiewicz used is his personal address and does not convey to the recipient of his email message that it was sent or endorsed by the local union.  Cf. Ostrach, 2006 ESD 348 (September 24, 2016) (use of union-supplied email address, combined with other union resources, to send campaign solicitation violated the Rules).

Accordingly, we DENY this protest.

Any interested party not satisfied with this determination may request a hearing before the Election Appeals Master within two (2) working days of receipt of this decision.  The parties are reminded that, absent extraordinary circumstances, no party may rely upon evidence that was not presented to the Office of the Election Supervisor in any such appeal.  Requests for a hearing shall be made in writing, shall specify the basis for the appeal, and shall be served upon:

Kathleen A. Roberts

Election Appeals Master

JAMS

620 Eighth Avenue, 34th floor

New York, NY 10018

kroberts@jamsadr.com

Copies of the request for hearing must be served upon the parties, as well as upon the Election Supervisor for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 1050 17th Street, N.W., Suite 375, Washington, D.C. 20036, all within the time prescribed above.  A copy of the protest must accompany the request for hearing.

                                                                        Richard W. Mark

                                                                        Election Supervisor

cc:        Kathleen A. Roberts

            2016 ESD 285

DISTRIBUTION LIST (BY EMAIL UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED):

 


Bradley T. Raymond, General Counsel

International Brotherhood of Teamsters

25 Louisiana Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20001

braymond@teamster.org

David J. Hoffa

1701 K Street NW, Ste 350

Washington DC 20036

hoffadav@hotmail.com

Ken Paff

Teamsters for a Democratic Union

P.O. Box 10128

Detroit, MI 48210-0128

ken@tdu.org

Barbara Harvey

1394 E. Jefferson Avenue

Detroit, MI 48207

blmharvey@sbcglobal.net

Teamsters United

315 Flatbush Avenue, #501

Brooklyn, NY 11217

info@teamstersunited.org

Louie Nikolaidis

350 West 31st Street, Suite 40

New York, NY 10001

lnikolaidis@lcnlaw.com

Julian Gonzalez

350 West 31st Street, Suite 40

New York, NY 10001

jgonzalez@lcnlaw.com

David O’Brien Suetholz

515 Park Avenue

Louisville, KY 45202

dave@unionsidelawyers.com

Fred Zuckerman

P.O. Box 9493

Louisville, KY 40209

fredzuckerman@aol.com


Joe Darmento

41665 Corte Higuera

Temecula, CA 92592

jjoeysleeve@aol.com

 

Ed Gronkiewicz

Gronkie1@gmail.com

Teamsters Local Union 2727

7711 Beulah Church Rd

Louisville, KY 40228

steve.stone@local2727.org

tim.boyle@local2727.org

Joe Childers

201 W. Short St, Ste 300

Lexington, KY 40507

Childerslaw81@gmail.com

Bill Broberg

1108 Fincastle Road

Lexington, KY 40502

wbroberg@ibtvote.org

Jeffrey Ellison

214 S. Main Street, Suite 212

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

EllisonEsq@aol.com



[1] In Darmento, 2016 ESD 277 (July 27, 2016), we denied a protest alleging that Local Union 2727 incumbent officials impermissibly used a union email list to send campaign material.  The evidence there showed that the email addresses used to send the campaign material were obtained from campaign emails sent by the protestor, which “listed the addressees’ email addresses in full view rather than using the ‘bcc’ function that would have hidden the addresses from each recipient.  Accordingly, when Boyle and Stone received the emails from Darmento, they simply copied the other recipients’ addresses into their own email blasts, supplementing the lists from Darmento with email addresses they had accumulated.”  Gronkiewicz obtained the email addresses used in his campaign blasts from the same source.  We note that Darmento’s mass email distribution included Gronkiewicz’s gmail address, a concession that the address was appropriately used for campaign communications.