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THE PATRIOT RETURNS |
Vol. 37, No.3 October 01, 2007
Button Your Lip, Buddy!
In our last number, we included an open letter from Javier Perez, formerly of Hostos Community College, to our Dear Leader. Perez complained that despite numerous requests, Barbara had not deigned to reply; and he expressed outrage at the cavalier handling of a grievance hearing---one that cost him his job---by the PSC's in-house jailhouse lawyer, Nathaniel Charny. The intemperate, and often insulting, remarks that we've heard from the union leadership about The Patriot and our editor-in-chief notwithstanding, it does seem that a few of the faithful in Bowen's Broadway bunker do pay attention to this newsletter. Mr. Perez finally received a reply from the PSC (Click here for PDF) dated September 21st, tho' not from the Dear Leader, but from Ms. Deborah Bell, the union's Executive Director. This should have brought this awkward, embarrassing episode to a close. But, no! As readers can see, Debbie did her darndest to deflect the comments about Counselor Charny. "Fine," one might say. Isn't this what flacks are paid to do? Perhaps, but we very much doubt that employees of the Professional Staff Congress are charged with warning ex-CUNY employees about "wild accusations." Nor should Ms. Bell be making public remarks about previous grievance hearings in what looks like a sad, sleazy effort to smear Mr. Perez. We were under the impression that such information was confidential. Public? Sadly, yes. Perez received Bell's "button your lip, buddy" letter on Monday, September 24th. Yet the same, presumably personal, communication was sent as an attachment a few days before by Ms. Norma Pena de Llorenz, the Hostos Community College chapter chair with the e-salutation:
Now, why the Hostos community should be copied on this matter is beyond us, unless the PSC central office hopes to squelch any future complaints by faculty and staff who might be denied promotion and tenure, or might be on the wrong side of a grievance hearing. Here at The Patriot we find it appalling that Bell and Pena de Llorenz appear to have gone out of their way to damage the reputation of someone who has lost his livelihood in order to defend the omniscience of the dear leadership and the track record of a convicted felon. So, too, does Javier Perez. As a riposte to Debbie Bell's brush-off, and in hope of a formal response from the Dear Leader, he sends on the following:
ANOTHER OPEN LETTER TO BARBARA BOWEN
24 September 2007 Dear Ms. Bowen: I've been reading your response, sent to me through Ms. Bell. Why the response came from someone other than you is a mystery to me. Whatever the reason, I feel there are certain points in your letter that I need to address. But I do ask that my response be forwarded to all of the persons who received the response you issued through Bell. To begin with, you claim PSC-CUNY succeeded twice in defending me against Hostos. This is true but requires clarification. The first time I was fired, PSC-CUNY won at arbitration through the efforts of Nick Russo. The second time Hostos reversed itself before step one and I returned to work. Nathaniel Charny was NOT connected to either one of these efforts. If you go back and reread my letter you will find that I am calling for your resignation because you allowed Charny to be retained by PSC-CUNY and because you allowed him to represent me. I feel that linking these two previous efforts to Charny, serves only to mislead the membership of the PSC. Please stop doing so. I'd like to know what this business of broadcasting wild accusations is all about. Am I wrong about Charny's involvement in the Ron Carey incident? Am I wrong about him being suspended from the practice of law for 18 months after making false statements to a court appointed election official? Am I wrong about him being convicted of a crime---indeed a felony---for having made those false statements? Am I wrong in stating that his conviction was related the investigation of a union election matter? Could your judgment and that of some in the PSC leadership be so warped that you simply don't see the significance of any of this in relation to Charny's ability to represent members of the PSC properly? More specifically, do you understand that in addition to being top notch in his field, the attorney for a union like PSC-CUNY must also be legally and ethically impeccable? Or are you simply trying to maintain, in the face of reason, that my allegation that he did an awful job on my grievance, is in and of itself, somehow wild? Please Ms. Bowen if you wish to rebut my allegations, at least use some common sense. You maintain that Charny's professional employment history was fully reviewed by the entirety of the PSC leadership. Did this include a review of his involvement in the Carey incident? It is public knowledge after all. Are you now going to tell me that the leadership didn't know about his troubles? Please don't try that! It took me a few minutes on my computer to find out once I looked. You claim to be confident that Charny handled my case in a "thoughtful and organized" manner. I would suggest that you refrain from making such a claim unless you are personally familiar with what he did and didn't do in my case. Though I don't quite believe you, I'm not going challenge what you call Charny's exemplary record at PSC because I am not familiar with whatever else he did while he worked there. But I will ask why he is no longer there and why he left almost immediately after I complained to him and to you, about what I was already beginning to see as a mishandled case. An Internet search reveals that Charny is now working at a cooking school and is not employed as an attorney. Is that employment pattern consistent with someone who leaves an attorney position voluntarily? You seem to feel that because I have brought claims against PSC to the PERB, I should restrict myself to that forum to air my complaints. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am making my complaint against the PSC public because I don't want to see any more people fall victim to the half-assed, harebrained PSC practices that cost me my job at Hostos. At the very least, you and some of the PSC leadership demonstrated bad judgment that may well extend into areas well outside the matter of Charny. I have bent over backwards to show restraint in this matter and so far I have shared my complaint with a very limited number of individuals, groups of people and agencies. I have done so in order to find solutions with the least amount of disruption or embarrassment for the PSC. But I will continue to call for an investigation of this matter and I will do so in any forum I wish. Please do not pretend to advise me on propriety issues. I consider you and certain elements of the PSC leadership to be an embarrassment to the PSC and destructive to the interests of the PSC membership. I conclude by calling once again for your resignation and the resignation of any official involved in the appointment of Charny as PSC's lead attorney. I think you owe it to my former coworkers. Sincerely,
Sharad Karkhanis, Ph.D. Forthcoming issues of The Patriot may be accessed at http://www.patriotreturns.com |