Recent shortages in staffing and budget have not resulted in a shortage of victories for AFGE Local 2505. Over the past year, our Local President has been working harder than ever to uphold your rights as employees. Hundreds of thousands of dollars awarded in arbitration damages, dozens of settlements, numerous upsetting exposures, and several unprecedented, successful unfair labor practice complaints later, an uncomfortable truth has emerged for SSA. Employee wins make them look bad and embarrassing losses must be eliminated. However, SSA has not chosen a solution that will reduce violations of employee rights. Rather eliminating bad management behavior, they have determined that the solution is eliminating Ralph de Juliis.

Although no one in the Agency is willing to accept responsibility for leading the current retaliation campaign against Ralph, it is clear that management has decided to go after our members and their rights by targeting our local president.

While most of us have spent our careers serving the public, Ralph de Juliis has spent most of his 33 years with the Agency ensuring that we can provide our service to the public in the most equitable work environment possible. Ralph’s primary workloads since 1984 have consisted of employee grievances, EEO matters, unfair labor practices, and bargaining. He is responsible for numerous employee promotions, increased appraisal ratings, reversals of employee terminations and other discipline, massive award winnings for employees, unparalleled employee damage settlements, enforcement of rights to bargain workplace changes, restoration of improperly charged leave, safety enhancements in the workplace, and far too many other employee related triumphs to list in a single paragraph. Sometimes a one-man show, his vocal opposition to unfair practices has created a large volume of work for Dallas Regional Office and embarrassment for Arkansas and Oklahoma management. Ultimately, his successful challenges on behalf of employees necessitated the creation of two additional labor relations positions in Regional Office just to deal with issues arising from Arkansas and Oklahoma offices.

Ralph's local management team in Tulsa Oklahoma had a history of allowing him full time Union duties until March of this year. Since this time, local management in Tulsa has suddenly shifted their approach. Acceptance has been replaced with continuous harassing behavior over his representational duties. Management proposed a considerable reduction in the amount of time Ralph is allowed to use in representing employees in grievances and in the EEO process. When attempts at browbeating him into decreasing Union activity failed, management initiated "investigatory" proceedings, alleging a conduct issue with his failure to follow orders. Two members of management attempted to meet with him without a representative, and to make this initial "investigatory meeting" more intimidating, they resorted to adding outrageous issues related to his use of "salty" language in representing employees. The "investigation" is ongoing and the threat of discipline is pending. Pete Harris, President of AFGE Local 3438, is acting as representative for Ralph and traveled to Oklahoma from Tennessee to be present during the meeting. Throughout this "investigatory" procedure, Tulsa District Manager, Elizar Huerta, has maintained that they are only following orders handed down directly from Dallas Regional Office.

When confronted by Ralph, Regional Office denied giving Tulsa management any such directive. However, the involvement of Labor Relations Specialist Carolyn Jackson was revealed shortly after the meting was held with Ralph and LP Harris.

Ralph de Juliis and Carolyn Jackson share a history of being on opposite sides of employee issues and going head-to-head when management refuses to comply with the Contract. Much of the history originated during proceedings for three employees Ralph represented referred to as the Little Rock Three. It was Ms. Jackson's handling of discipline against these employees, and her related testimony during arbitration that resulted in the landmark decisions against the Agency. Arbitrator Bankston found that management's actions not only violated the Contract but also the Civil Rights Act, were "gross and repugnant", and constituted "reckless, blameworthy misbehavior". Arbitrator Bankston awarded two members of the Little Rock 3 compensatory damages, punitive damages and back pay, with total costs that exceeded $400,000. Since her subsequent promotion to labor relations officer, confrontation with the Union has been unbridled.

Notably, the current crusade against Ralph began within six months of Carolyn Jackson's promotion to labor relations officer.

Shortly after the investigatory proceedings, and perhaps intentionally, Ms. Jackson included Ralph in correspondence with employees at all levels in the chain of command in both Regional and Central Office. The correspondence specifically pertained to the investigatory meeting and the identity of Ralph's representative, Pete Harris. Subsequently, LP Harris was informed by his own manager that a large portion of time he used to represent Ralph could not be approved as official union time. Again, LP Harris’ manager placed the blame on the Dallas Regional Office, stating that the Dallas Region contacted the Atlanta Region in an interregional exchange. The manager told LP Harris that he was just doing as he was told and following orders and that LP Harris had to use his annual leave. The determination of a coordinated Agency effort to interfere with Ralph’s representative demonstrates an unscrupulous agenda shared throughout the SSA hierarchy.

Both Pete and Ralph are using multiple forums to fight for their right to represent employees without such interference and intimidation.

As employees of SSA, we are familiar with position descriptions. Carolyn Jackson's position does not entail transferring the authority of local management to herself to fulfill self-serving goals. It does not entail ordering local management to initiate investigations of employees she personally and professionally dislikes. It is not the job of labor relations to orchestrate retaliation against Union officers who have successfully challenged SSA’s actions against and treatment of employees via SSA's own personnel policy manual. Overstepping position boundaries and abuse of authority is not welcomed in the field office. If RO wants to handle personnel in Field Offices, they should get out of their Ivory Tower. No public contact with on-site day care, exercise facilities, and time off for in house Super Bowl parades is a luxury we would all appreciate as we are taking interviews referred at 4:00 while our phones ring off the hook all day and our Outlook is full of emails about things we haven't done expeditiously enough.

Ralph has always supported our membership, and we will continue to support Ralph. Through our solidarity and support, we ensure that management does not silence advocates for us who will stand up to the favoritism, inequity, discrimination, and injustice in our workplaces!