Public Employee Press

CCRB ordered to end retaliation

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

In an important victory for members’ rights, an impartial panel has ordered the Civilian Complaint Review Board to end the 15-month campaign of intimidation and retaliation for union activity waged by managers against two Investigators in Local 1113.

The Board of Collective Bargaining on Dec. 4 ordered CCRB to “cease and desist from retaliating against Sheena Otto and Debra Cleaver” for filing grievances, to remove reprimands from their files, and to re-evaluate their job performance “without regard to protected union activity.”

“The irony is the agency set up to protect civilians from abuses of power by the police condones managers who abuse their power over employees who exercised their contractual union rights,” said DC 37 White Collar Division Director Mike Riggio. He worked on the case with Council Rep Chris Wilgenkamp and DC 37 lawyer Steven Sykes.

With over five years on the job, Sheena Otto is one of CCRB’s most senior Level 1 Investigators. Rapid turnover leaves few experienced Investigators, and managers assigned her Level 2 work with no pay raise or promotion. In 2005, when a co-worker she had trained was promoted over her, Otto called DC 37 and filed an out-of-title grievance, which is pending.

“That’s when the managers targeted Otto and Shop Steward Debra Cleaver in a retaliation campaign that denied them promotions and threatened their jobs,” Sykes said. The reprisals escalated with every move DC 37 made to protect the two.

“When I asked for a promotion, the agency claimed it had no money,” said Cleaver, but weeks later CCRB promoted 37 Investigators — most with much less experience than the two. Otto was “angry and confused. Imagine, three people I mentored were moved to Level 3 and are now my supervisors.”

Pattern of harassment
One supervisor admitted that she had “orders from senior managers to no longer extend deadlines for her,” as was normally done for others. Otto received a series of disciplinary memos, including one questioning cases she had worked on years ago. Evaluations suddenly rated her job performance as conditional or poor, although she met all deadlines.

The managers finally did the unthinkable and voiced negative comments about her work in a CCRB panel meeting.

“Management embarrassed her before colleagues and officials,” Sykes said. “It was obvious that she was being disciplined in retaliation for her union activity.”

Managers turned the screws on Cleaver with supervisory memos, unreasonable deadlines that forced her to work unpaid overtime, and a written reprimand for failing to complete one case. Cleaver’s grievance against these injustices is pending.

“Now the other investigators have come forward in support and have filed group grievances against out-of-title work and nonpayment of involuntary overtime,” said Wilgenkamp. “This show of unity is a direct result of the union activism Ms. Otto and Ms. Cleaver demonstrated.”