Meet the Executive Board

Left to Right - Ralph de Juliis - President, Mitzi Brooks - 1st Vice President, Magda Mashburn - Secretary/Treasurer, Carol Lewis - Executive Vice President

2nd Vice President, Mary Roberts (below)

Board Bios

President

Ralph de Juliis: I started with SSA in 1978 in Passaic, NJ. Worked in the Montclair and Paterson, NJ offices before transferring to Tulsa, in 1998.

I was a Local Rep and officer in the NJ SSA/AFGE Local (2369). I was Regional Vice President in the NY Region. I was Executive Vice President of AFGE Council 220 from 1988 through 1993. I became Executive Vice President of Local 2505 in 1993 and President in 2007.

I first became aware of how much SSA hated me when management in the NY Region refused the request of another representative to reschedule a 4 PM grievance presentation. The NJ Local then reassigned the grievance presentation to me. Regional LMR called the NJ Local President and asked what time was good for the OTHER representative!

For instance, in my first office, the DM was reprimanded because of me; However, trying to lower my appraisal, reprimanding and suspending me didn't bring me under control. I won my EEO to wear sandals without socks. Management's name was taken in vain by the arbitrator who noted I couldn't have official time because of office exigencies; but, when my wife called with car trouble, there were no offices exigencies and I could leave. In my second office, the DM was reprimanded twice because of the Union. (I was in Baltimore at the time of both offenses). I forced management to stop making the employees raise and lower the flag daily. I caused them to spend $10,000 (according to the DM) to get handicapped workable doors. I prevented them from having an emergency exit through the utility room when employees has to step over drain pipes while ducking to avoid hitting their heads on electrical conduit. OSHA told the DM to remove the Emergency Exit sign. He pulled it off the wall in front of both of us. He also pulled the sheet rock off the wall. Then he took the OSHA Inspector to my cubicle and asked if he had ever seen a more messy, hazardous cubicle. (Phone wires stretched the length of the cubicle, my motorcycle helmet, boots, leather strewn about the floor.) Boxes. The Inspector took me and the DM to the DM's office, closed the door and in a very quiet voice asked the DM is he was aware of the very serious and significant penalties OSHA could impose on an employer to took reprisal and retaliation against some one who filed a Health and Safety Complaint with OSHA.

Things calmed down. Then, one day, we got a new photocopy machine. I burned it out the FIRST DAY. I was banned from the Photocopy machine. The Local filed a grievance. The settlement was that I had unlimited access to the AD's photocopy machine.

A former, demoted supervisor was assigned to our office. After one year on 100% review, he asked for representation. I got everything removed and him reassigned. The DM called me into tell me what a DISSERVICE I had perpetrated on SSA for saving the job of so worthless an employee. So.it was ON, again.

Next management counseled me for my sick leave usage. I was pretty angry because I had slid around the corner, at speed on the ice on my motorcycle. (The guy who came over to help and lift my bike off of me, slipped on the ice and landed on my head! Luckily, I hadn't taken my helmet off yet). That led to a series of grievances. As it turned out, management pretty much admitted that the only reason the counseled me was because they had counseled 4 women and couldn't very well get away with counseling them, if they didn't counsel the guy (me) who had used more sick leave than all of them.

The AD offered a settlement to remove everything against everyone. I wouldn't agree. They wanted to know why. I said that one of the women wasn't in the Union. Screw her. The AD hung up on me; called the LP and they settled out from under me! WHAT NERVE! (Okay; it was an Unfair Labor Practice; we would have had to settle sooner or later).

I guess that gives rise to the baseless and spurious allegation that "Ralph can't take YES for an answer!"
In my next office, the ADM retroactively cancelled my official time. I said he couldn't and had to file a grievance against me. He didn't buy it and threatened to put me on AWOL. I wrote a scathing letter to him / RO in which I called him a p*ssy.  He called me into his office and asked me to step into the parking lot to settle it like men. I declined and complained to RO that instead of having a picture of the President, VP and SSA Commissioner in his office, he had a picture of an admitted perjurer and felon, Lt Col Oliver North. He was ordered to remove the picture. SSA's Regional Counsel refused to back him up and let him discipline me for name-calling because it was "robust debate."

I was assigned by Council 220 to be the Union's Representative on the 1300 grievances that SSA filed against various AFGE/SSA Locals across the country in an attempt to bankrupt the Union. From 1984 through 1988, only 4 of those grievances reached arbitration and then, only on procedural, arbitrability / jurisdictional issues. In 1998, one of those grievances, against Local 2505, was heard by Arbitrator Francis X. Quinn. After a couple of days of discussion, Arbitrator Quinn told the parties that he understood their issues and told them NOT to write post-hearing briefs; but instead, to write the decision that each side wanted him to sign. Arbitrator Quinn signed the one I wrote. Shortly thereafter, all 1300 of the Union filed grievances were settled by the parties at the National Level.

I was the Union's lead representative over the National grievance concerning implementation of SSA's revised Travel Manuel. After receipt of my post-hearing brief, SSA opened settlement discussions which resulted in SSA agreeing to establish a fund of over 10 million dollars to reimburse employees to whom it had refused to pay relocation costs.

I was a negotiator for the Union for the 2000 National Agreement between SSA and AFGE and for the creation of the GS-12 Technical Expert in Field Offices.

As an employee representative in Local 2505, I have successfully helped different OK employees receive a CR promotion, three TE promotions, 1 CR promotion, prevented SSA from terminating an SRT at the end of that employee's probationary period, gotten numerous employees to stand up for themselves so that they get their breaks and full lunch periods, had lost use-or-lose annual leave restored, gotten SSA to schedule grievance presentations during core hours, worked with management to on training and rotation through various special assignments, helped employees get a reasonable accommodation (phone duty instead of reception for an employee with Lupus) and a hardship reassignment, got a suspension for a rep who turned herself in reversed and convinced an arbitrator that a probationary employee had been fired for protected activity and got her reinstated $40,000 in back pay.

Executive Vice President

In addition to serving as the Executive Vice President of Local 2505, Carol Lewis is also the Local Rep for the McAlester, Poteau, Hugo, and Ada offices.  In her capacity as Union Rep, she assisted the Local in overturning an employee termination and an employee suspension at arbitration. Carol currently works in the McAlester, OK office.

2nd Vice President

Mary Roberts

I was born in a small town near San Antonio, TX and moved to eastern New Mexico when I was eight years old. In the summer of 1968, I traveled to Oklahoma to visit family and never left. I married and raised two wonderful children. My son lives in St. Louis, MO and has three children. My daughter recently married and lives in Norman. I enrolled at the University of Oklahoma when they were in their teens. I graduated the twentieth of December 1991 with a degree in Public Administration and my masters the second of August 1993 fulfilling a lifelong dream.

While working on my Masters program, I was the Interim Assistant Director of Hispanic Student Services at OU. After graduation, I started my career with the Norman Public Schools teaching ESL (English as a second language). On January 23, 1994, I was hired as a Bilingual Service Representative for SSA and within a year and a half promoted to a Bilingual Claims Representative. In November 2003, I was a guest instructor at the Region VI Training Center in Dallas Texas.

In 2005, I completed the Slick training. On 12/23/05, I was selected as TE after an EEO complaint was filed for non-selection in which I was represented by then, AFGE Local 2505 Executive Vice President, Ralph de Juliis . This position has been extended yearly, since my selection.

In 2008, as a result of a grievance settlement in Moore, the use or lose annual leave I lost, of the National Day of Mourning for President Ford, was restored.

I believe in the Union, and in what the Union can do. Being an officer and helping other SSA employees in Oklahoma, for me, is just a way of "paying it forward" and showing my appreciation and gratitude for what AFGE Local 2505 has done for me!

 

Secretary / Treasurer

Magda Mashburn: Started with SSA in 1974 right after graduating from SW Missouri State University magna cum laude.

She started as a claims representative. She soon reached step 10 because of numerous awards and step increases. Because of limitations in mobility and lack of opportunities and a general dislike of moving into management ranks, she remained a claims representative. When new opportunities finally lurked because of new GS12 positions, she always made the top 3 on the list to best qualified*, yet never quite made the cut. In spite of an excellent work record and numerous awards, it appeared that maybe she had become too old. After 30 years of keeping her nose to the grind stone and donating lots of free time and skipping breaks and lunches, she decided it was time to squawk. And squawk she did with the help of Ralph de Juliis. Within months based on an EEO complaint, she was promoted to GS12 Technical Expert, a position not to exceed one year. Again within months based on a second EEO complaint (again with the help of Ralph de Juliis), this position was changed to a GS12 permanent. Magda is currently on the SDW cadre in Oklahoma City, OK.

She has always been a strong supporter of the Union and has been a member since 1974. She never felt she needed the Union's services until the repeated non-selection when she felt she more than qualified for the new GS12 positions created. She will be forever grateful to the Union and to Ralph for helping her get promoted.

Effective with 2007, she has served as Secretary-Treasurer of Local 2505 and hopes to do so for a while longer before she retires.