Public Employee Press

New staff to strengthen membership services

As part of its constant effort to strengthen services for members, DC 37 has recently filled important positions with four talented and experienced staffers.

Lawrence Kenchen is the new associate director of the Political Action Dept. He worked on public housing issues and with political leaders in Chicago, Jersey City and Miami before joining the DC 37 staff. A native New Yorker, he was raised in Queens and studied at Roxbury Community College and the University of Massachusetts. Kenchen has degrees in history, urban studies and black studies, and a law degree from New York University.“One reason I am here is my belief in the mission of DC 37,” he said. A source of joy in his life is caring for six children of friends who are now deceased.

Claire Menelas is the Education Dept.’s new assistant director for the labor education program, which conducts shop steward classes and coordinates labor education training.

Formerly a rep for Local 6 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, she and her family came to the United States from Haiti in 1982. Menelas has a bachelor’s degree from Berkeley College and is currently working toward her master’s. She has two daughters, Eneceo, 15, and Ashira, 11.

“Working with DC 37 members is very rewarding. They truly are the people who make this city run,” she said.

Heath Madom, a new assistant director in the Research and Negotiations Dept., earned a bachelor’s degree at New York University, spent two years teaching seventh grade at a Brooklyn public school, and then graduated from the University of California’s Hastings Law School. Madom worked as a researcher for a local of the Service Employees International Union for three years. Born and raised on Long Island, he now lives in Queens with his fiancé.

“The great thing about working as a negotiator is that you get to help working people realize the changes they want in their workplaces,” he said.

Nina Perez, a new Council Rep in the Clerical Division, started as an Office Aide at Sea View Hospital in 1986, became a Local 1549 shop steward in 1989 and a grievance rep in 2001.

Perez grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and attended parochial schools, including Cathedral High School. After raising her three children, Perez went back to school and earned an associate’s degree at the College of Staten Island.

She enjoys representing union members and said, “I feel like they are part of my family.”