Union women's bias suit heads to court

The job discrimination case of two former top officials of the collective-bargaining unit for the union that represents the city's white-collar workers is headed to trial in federal court next week.

The women - Carol Stukes, former secretary/treasurer, and Patrica Walton, former vice president of AFSCME Local 2187 - sued the union and its president, Cathy Scott, in 2005, alleging job discrimination on the basis of race and gender.

The women are seeking more than $150,000 each in compensatory damages, in addition to $20,000 each in back pay and an undetermined amount of front pay, said Isaac Green, their attorney.

Scott and the union have denied the allegations, saying the real issue was political infighting within the union, not discrimination.

Stukes and Walton lost re-election bids - Stukes for president and Walton for vice president - in October 2003. As a result of losing the election, both women lost their union jobs.

Stukes and Walton then returned to their city jobs. Walton has since retired.

Stukes, according to court papers, lost by a 2-to-1 margin to Scott. Prior to the election, Scott had replaced her on the official slate with a black male for the secretary/treasurer slot.

Walton had been replaced on the official slate for vice president with a male who was part Latino and part white.

Defense attorney Ronald H. Surkin said in court papers that neither woman had "offered a scintilla of evidence" to prove that race or gender was a factor in their election defeats.

Surkin also said that neither woman had suffered any other adverse employment actions which affected their compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment.

He said Stukes and Watson were "disappointed and frustrated" over losing the election and they decided to file a job discrimination suit without any evidence.

Plaintiffs' attorneys Green and Tremelle Howard-Fishburne have said in court papers that Scott had set out to divide the union and staff reps along racial lines "under the cover of union politics."

According to court filings by plaintiffs, Scott allegedly told her predecessor, Thomas Cronin, that the "blacks were trying to take over District Council 47" and that Stukes and Walton were behind it.

But Surkin said in court papers that that "inaccurately" characterized the conversation and that the plaintiffs themselves had acknowledged the need for more black people in leadership positions with the union.

The plaintiffs said that Scott allegedly told both Walton and Stukes that they had "no future" with Local 2187 several months before the election.

The election results offered a convenient "pretext" for Scott to force Stukes and Walton out of their union jobs, the plaintiffs' court filing said.

The women also contend that the union discriminated against them by asking them to sign a general release - which the union has denied - in order to get their deferred compensation benefits when their union jobs ended.

Stukes also contends that she was discriminated against because of her sex because Scott and other board members filed a complaint against her in May 2004 with AFSCME International for malfeasance regarding accounting practices.

Stukes claimed that two male predecessors used similar practices but were not accused of wrongdoing.

Lawyers for Local 2187 and Scott filed court papers Wednesday asking the judge presiding over the case to preclude testimony about this at trial because the complaint was filed five months after Stukes' employment with the local ended and thus can't be evidence of job discrimination. *