By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
The executive director of the independent board that rules on labor complaints and resolves collective bargaining impasses between unions and the D.C. government is not a resident of the District, as required by law, but of Virginia.
After months of upheaval, the only thing impeding the president of a D.C. youth-corrections officers' union is a board member with a checkered past and an employee relations director who, despite city requirements, does not live in the District.
The District employee at the center of a union leadership dispute has a decadeslong court history -- including criminal charges — that possibly clouds his attempt to take over a 200-member youth-corrections officers' union, records show.
In a rare reversal, a D.C. employee-relations board has vacated an order by its executive director to designate someone other than an elected union chairperson as the head of a bargaining unit that represents some 200 youth-corrections officers.
A small team of lawyers for the D.C. labor-relations office appeared in D.C. Superior Court this week to fend off allegations that the District government is conspiring to interfere in an intra-union dispute over the leadership of a 200-member bargaining unit for youth-corrections officers.
D.C. labor-relations officials insist they have nothing to do with a perplexing intraunion dispute over who has the authority to lead a 200-member union for youth-corrections officers.
An unusual ethics complaint charges that the director of the District's office of labor relations is attempting to oust the leader of a youth-corrections officers' union from her position.
Takisha Brown had barely gotten her feet wet as elected chairwoman of the Fraternal Order of Police union representing 200 youth-corrections officers when she sensed trouble.
A D.C. Council member is raising questions about the frequency of assaults at the city's juvenile detention facilities after two recent attacks on officers by youths.
"If this is not conspiracy to run a labor committee," she said, "I don't know what this is."
D.C. officials stall Fraternal Order of Police vote on leadership squabble →
Ms. Brown has claimed that DYRS management, with help from the Gray administration, has installed him in the labor committee to disrupt collective bargaining activities despite being a nonunion member.
D.C. officials stall Fraternal Order of Police vote on leadership squabble →
