ADVERTISEMENT

Union Staff Say They Were Told to Rein In Harassment Chatter

Union Staff Say They Were Told to Rein In Harassment Chatter

(Bloomberg) -- Employees at the largest federal worker’s union say they’ve been told not to discuss an ongoing sexual harassment scandal with union members or on social media.

Late on Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that ten people who worked for the American Federation of Government Employees say they witnessed or experienced inappropriate behavior by union president J. David Cox. He denies the allegations, according to AFGE.

Union Staff Say They Were Told to Rein In Harassment Chatter

The next day, AFGE managers in various departments talked with staff about the controversy, according to several employees who took part in the meetings. The employees, who requested anonymity fearing retaliation, said they were told that they were not allowed to discuss the misconduct allegations, media reports about them, or the investigation into them on social media, or with any of AFGE’s 300,000 members across government agencies.

“Staff was simply reminded to avoid engaging in politics around these allegations,” AFGE said in a statement, noting that there are already a number of likely candidates for the union’s presidential race in 2021 and it has a longstanding policy restricting employees from getting involved in its elections.

AFGE employees said they were frustrated and disappointed that the labor union seemed to be curbing their ability to speak up about pressing concerns in their own workplace. What’s more, the federal labor law that guarantees workers collective action rights protects their right to do so, said former National Labor Relations Board Chair Wilma Liebman.

“Employees have the right to discuss with each other their terms and conditions of employment, and that certainly encompasses workplace sexual misconduct,” she said, including engaging with co-workers on Twitter or Facebook and discussing ongoing investigations at work.

Employees “are of course free to speak to whomever they like so long as they’re doing so on their own behalf -- not AFGE’s,” the union said Monday in response to questions from Bloomberg News. Staff say that’s not how it was put to them.

In an all-staff email sent on Tuesday evening, AFGE’s secretary-treasurer Everett Kelley, who has assumed Cox’s duties, said it was “categorically incorrect that employees are discouraged or limited in coming forward with, discussing, or reporting allegations of sexual harassment or any other impermissible conduct, which AFGE does not condone.” AFGE employees “are free to communicate with each other” about misconduct and other topics, Kelley said in the message AFGE shared with Bloomberg, which acknowledged that there had been several “requests to clarify” what directors had told employees the day before.

The email did not specifically address social media use, but said that the union’s longstanding “no-politics” rule “should in no way be read as limiting or preventing employees from exercising their right to be free from and to report misconduct, or any other right they may have.”

AFGE on Monday said that a committee of its executive council would bring in an outside investigator to look into the allegations concerning Cox, probably within 48 hours.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kelley addressed the controversy at a brief staff-wide meeting at AFGE’s headquarters. “Your jobs are not in jeopardy, the union is not in jeopardy -- we will continue our work on behalf of our members,” Kelley told AFGE staff assembled in person and by phone. “Tomorrow I want you to come to work with your focus intact,” Kelley said, according to employees who heard the remarks. ”I need to know that you’ve got my back, and I’ve certainly got your back.”

Kelley’s remarks lasted around five minutes and he didn’t take questions. He closed with a call and response in which he told the crowd, “We are going to fight together,” “stand together,” and “love each other.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Eidelson in Palo Alto at jeidelson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Janet Paskin at jpaskin@bloomberg.net, Rebecca Greenfield

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.