Union Files Additional Complaints Against Mayor

In the past few days, at least three complaints were filed against Mayor Drew and the City of Middletown, alleging he and/or the city took actions prevent city employees from what they consider to be deserved advancements.

In one complaint, detailed in the Hartford Courant Wednesday, Board of Education Manager of Human Resources, Michele DiMauro, who already has a formal grievance issued against the city claiming gender discrimination in job advancement, delivered a letter to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity Management.  Also receiving copies of the complaint were the majority leader of the Common Council, Tom Serra and the minority leader of the Common Council Seb Giuliano.  A copy of the complaint made this week, and the City of Middletown regulation which forms the basis for the complaint, can be seen below (click to enlarge).

The city, for it's part, is steadfast in it's denial of harassment of any kind, either that cited in the original grievance, or that noted in the more recent complaint.

In an email, City Attorney Brig Smith explained the city's position.

According to Attorney Smith: "The City is defending this grievance vigorously and denies the allegations entirely.  Ms. DiMauro went through the same objective labor-management committee process as the other candidates.  Her position was one of four recommended for review through the Maximus point-factor system, which has been mandated by the City’s and Union’s collective bargaining agreements for years.  Under the system, job duties are run through a matrix to determine whether a position is entitled to a classification or compensation upgrade.  When the duties as presented by Ms. DiMauro were run through the matrix, there was no grade increase recommended. 

After Ms. DiMauro submitted additional information, we re-ran the point-factor analysis, which resulted in a one-grade increase for her position—the same increase that the other positions received.  She demanded, however, at least a two-grade increase and filed a grievance.  This is after already receiving six grade increases over her last two reclassification requests.

Her gender or political affiliation played no part in the reclassification outcome driven by the Maximus system.  Her job duties did.  Period."

Because DiMauro's complaint is against the mayor, and involves the City Attorney's office, DiMauro and her union have requested outside counsel to handle the complaint, and have also requested that the Common Council conduct an independent investigation.

DiMauro's complaint suggests that the mayor inappropriately intervened in the review of her job description and potential salary increase, and then in reaction to her filed grievance.

Another formal grievances was filed Wednesday against Mayor Dan Drew and the city by Local 6457 on behalf of Common Council Clerk, Linda Reed. This grievance claims age and gender discrimination during her time at the city's planning office.  According to the union, Reed claims she was hired at a lower pay grade than a male counterpart, in the City's Planning Office, when she held a position there.  She also contends that another younger colleague was hired at a higher pay grade.

The union has requested that this grievance be handled by the city's Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity Management because the actions at the core of the complaint include the "potential involvement of the Office of General Counsel, the Human Resources Office and the Mayor's Office."

DiMauro also filed a follow-up complaint to her original grievance and harassment complaint.  In a letter filed Wednesday by the UPSEU, the union contends that while investigating the original complaints by DiMauro, they discovered "a year-long, list-serve barrage of campaign solicitations being sent directly to DiMauro's workplace email at the Middletown BOE," from "Drew for Governor" links.  The most recent solicitation was sent this week.  The union claims these solicitations "may have been an effort to entrap, discredit, endanger the employment of, intimidate, discriminate against and/or harass DiMauro based on her political affiliations or associations."

Dan Drew's campaign for governor is currently being investigated by the State Elections Enforcement Commission after a complaint was filed that Drew solicited campaign donations from city employees.  Drew has apologized for the use of those employee home addresses and called their usage an error.

Drew responded to the union, via email, stating that the most recent complaints were an error of his contracted social media and fundraising firm in Oregon, and that intimidation and harassment were not intended.

According to UPSEU vice president Ann Nash, "The mayor said it was a mistake made by a contracted campaign firm who didn't effectively scrub social media contacts from the solicitation list."

Apparently, while contacts with the with top-level domains of ".gov" were removed, others with ".edu" and ".org" may not have been.  Recently, another potential gubernatorial candidate, Hartford's Mayor Luke Bronin ran into a similar problem when sending out solicitations for his exploratory bid for governor.