Candidates for president face runoff in clerical local election

Two candidates running for president in District Council 37 Local 1549’s election will face each other in a runoff contest after none of the competitors earned a majority of votes — and a competitor in the race for secretary-treasurer has filed a protest alleging campaign violations that may have affected the outcome of the race.

Anthony Lackhan, part of the Members In Charge slate, and Debbie-Ann Gutierrez, head of the Team Forward slate, received the highest number of votes among the four competitors running for president, and will face each other in a runoff mail ballot election. 

Among the 1,022 ballots cast for president, Gutierrez received 329 votes and Lackhan earned 310 votes, while Alvin Carter and Nicole Gates received 262 and 121 votes, respectively, according to an unofficial tally of ballots obtained by The Chief. 

Since none of the candidates secured the majority of votes required to win, a runoff election was announced. Voting in the runoff contest started on Nov. 26; ballots are due Dec. 20.

“I am excited to runoff and I already am campaigning,” Lackhan said during a phone interview. “I don’t doubt that I will be the successful candidate in this election.”

Gutierrez said that she “welcomed” the challenge.

The election had 1,059 ballots cast, according to the Local 1549 website. The votes were tallied by the American Arbitration Association on Nov. 22. 

From the Team Forward slate, Vanessa Reed won the executive vice-president position, while Yolanda Holliday narrowly won the secretary-treasurer race. Hope Lawrence won the election for recording secretary, while two of the three trustee positions went to Team Forward’s Gladys Little and Andrea Andrades.

Lisa Rhymer won the second vice-president position on behalf of the Members of Charge slate. Other winners from that slate included Joseph Rodriguez, who won one of the sergeant-at-arms positions, Sonia Rodriguez, who was chosen for one of officer-at-large roles, and Ana Deluca Mayne, who won the last of the three trustee positions.

Runoff elections will also be conducted for the remaining three officer-at-large and two sergeant-at-arms positions.

“Whichever way it goes, we’ll roll up our sleeves and work together,” Gutierrez said.

But she noted that she was surprised by the low turnout. “I thought it would be a little higher, to be honest,” the Team Forward member said. “But the members have busy lives, sometimes they forget to put [the ballot] in the mail.”

Eight-vote margin contested

Lackhan and his fellow Members in Charge candidate Honda Wang, who lost the race for secretary-treasurer by eight votes, also expressed disappointment with the low turnout.

“We did our best to mobilize people to vote, but it’s very hard to get people to think that their union matters when we haven’t had a single chapter meeting since the administratorship took place,” Wang said, noting that the turnout was less than 10 percent. “It’s quite sad.” 

The election is the first held since the 11,000-member local was placed under administratorship by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in September 2022. The local was taken over after a draft audit found “serious” financial deficiencies and “numerous violations of AFSCME’s Financial Standards code.” The local’s longtime president, Eddie Rodriguez, and the union’s other officers, were immediately removed from their positions, and Rodriguez was later expelled.

But one of the races where a winner was declared has come under scrutiny. Wang, who narrowly lost his bid for secretary-treasurer, filed a protest with Local 1549’s election committee on Sunday. Wang received 492 votes to Holliday’s 500, according to the unofficial results.

Wang alleged that the opposing slate made several violations of the AFSCME Elections Code, which he believed could have affected the outcome of the secretary-treasurer race. Although the union’s rules prohibit the use of employer resources in election campaigning, Wang submitted photographs to the election committee of a Team Forward slate campaign flyer that was allegedly posted on multiple bulletin boards inside Lincoln Hospital. The boards contained a stamp saying “NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln Public Affairs.”

In his protest letter to the election committee, Wang wrote that the flyer being placed on a bulletin board that “the employer maintained control over” … “constitutes a use of employer resources.” He also noted that the employer stamp and “prohibition of posting union-related materials that do not have the employer stamp constitutes a violation similar to using an employer email account to contact members or using an employer printer to produce campaign literature.”

“This isn’t just a matter of posting something up on a union board — this was on the hospital’s board and appears to also have been laminated by the employer,” Wang said during a phone interview. “This seems to be a very clear use of city resources.”

Gutierrez disputed the allegation. “That particular institute, they have a policy and procedure. You’ve got to go through public affairs to get approval,” she said. “You can’t post anything unless you get it approved – that’s why it was stamped and laminated. We follow the policies and procedures of every agency.” 

Wang also alleged that another member who posted flyers and cards for the Members In Charge slate on a union bulletin board at a 311 worksite reported that the campaign materials were torn down soon after her shift ended. “Given the slim margins of the protested election, this violation alone should persuade the committee to recommend a rerun of the election,” he wrote in his protest to the election committee.

“They kept getting taken down by the very next shift. That could have prevented significant votes because 311 has hundreds of members,” Wang said. “It seems very suspect to me — that only our materials were taken down.” 

He added, “My honest hope is that [the election committee] will seriously look at this protest and rerun this race,” he said. “My hope is that we can run a very clean election this time around that will result in a clear election outcome that everyone can accept.”

Gutierrez said that she was unaware of the situation at 311 that Wang described, but said that “I doubt that anyone from Team Forward would do that. We do not involve ourselves in a dirty campaign.”

She added that “We’re here to build the local – we’re split, okay, but once [the election] is done, let’s expand this membership to find creative ways to increase salaries … and make the lives of our members affordable. We’ve just got to work together.”