Communication to Director of OLMS, DoL, regarding ASC election challenge

[The following communication was sent last week. When a response is received, it will be posted on this blog.]

October 7, 2010

John Lund
Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS)
Department of Labor

Dear Mr. Lund,

In June 2010 I was a candidate for Chair of the Assembly of State Conferences (ASC) of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in an election supervised by your OLMS.

I challenged that election on July 5, 2010 (copy below) because it was demonstrably undemocratic and conducted with improper complicity between the AAUP and your D.C. district office. I am sorry to have to write this, but I find no alternative to doing so.

My challenge involved 23 items. On September 28, 2010, your Chief, Division of Enforcement, "dismissed" my complaint (see attached). She reduced 23 items into 12, mainly by simply skipping items. Within items she ignored or distorted essential elements. Certainly, it was not a careful adjudication.

I believe that such conduct would never be countenanced in a court of law and I ask you to review my challenge and a full rebuttal (yet to be written) to the decision of your Office of Enforcement -- a decision which may have been drafted by the D.C. district office itself, the office that I allege was complicit with AAUP.

Allow me to point to a few items:

1) My complaint was officially supported with evidence from another candidate for the same AAUP office, George Pieczenik, and yet he was never contacted by your Office of Enforcement. I have been informed that a third candidate also challenged the election.

2) In my allegation 20, I affirm that Dr. Pieczenik sent in $400 for four distributions of his candidate message ($100 for each distribution) and yet only one distribution of his message was sent. Dr. Pieczenik was never reimbursed by AAUP for the unused $300. Your Office of Enforcement affirms that one, but only one, message of his was distributed and, yet, takes no notice whatsoever as to the $300 owed Dr. Pieczenik. That is, the decision letter mentions these facts, but ignores the illegal retaining of moneys from Dr. Pieczenik -- AAUP retaining $300 for no service rendered and it is now three months afterwards.

3) Regarding the election process, it was highly skewed toward the candidacy of the person openly endorsed by the AAUP leadership in her campaign email which itself used the resources of the labor organization in an improper manner. This is entirely unrecognized by your Office of Enforcement.

4) I would offer you a detailed rebuttal to the letter from your Office of Enforcement. Let me mention here merely one evidenciary item. Item 18 reports a message from TrueBallot itself to me that the manner of email distributions of campaign statements by candidates George Pieczenik and myself compared to that for Donna Potts (the therein-stated preferred candidate of the AAUP leadership) ensured that 2500 to 3000 MORE persons received her AAUP-officer endorsement message than the campaign messages of either George Pieczenik or myself.

Remarkably, your Office of Enforcement simply ignores altogether this evidence of bias toward one candidate against two others. This is blatantly unequal treatment which could have affected the outcome of the election and must be included in any review. Furthermore, this endorsed candidate's message was sent on the same day from two distinct email accounts, providing extra assurance of receipt by all 34,000 eligible voters having email accounts (the number of eligible voters was reported by Ms. Nolan).

I ask that you permit me to provide to you a detailed reply to the premature 'dismissal' of my complaint by your Office of Enforcement. The purpose is your own review of the adequacy of the letter of September 28, 2010 from the Office of Enforcement as a response to my complaints. This would allow for an intramural settlement pursuant to remedying the procedural defects which have characterized the process so far.

Thank you for your consideration.

Paul Zarembka
Candidate for Chair, ASC, AAUP

Attached: Letter from Chief, Division of Enforcement, OLMS
cc: George Pieczenik