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Town manager upholds firing of public workers

Posted on March 10, 2011March 10, 2011 by Taylor Sisk

Defense fund established

By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL – “When they realize you’re not going away,” local lawyer Al McSurely told some 50 people gathered last Thursday night at the First Baptist Church on North Roberson Street in Chapel Hill, “that’s the part I like the most.”

Those assembled had come out in support of fired Chapel Hill Public Works Department employees Kerry Bigelow and Clyde Clark, whom McSurely represents.

McSurely had learned the previous week that a Personnel Appeals Committee, comprised of Chapel Hill residents selected by the town council, had recommended against rehiring Bigelow and Clark after hearing the men’s appeals. The committee’s nonbinding recommendations were sent to Town Manger Roger Stancil. On Monday, four days after the rally, Stancil upheld those recommendations.

The two men were fired in October for alleged insubordination and intimidating behavior toward supervisors and residents along their waste-collection route.

Bigelow and Clark countered that they were dismissed in retaliation for grievances they filed with management that alleged unsafe working conditions and racial bias in job placements and promotions.

They also alleged that the town took action against them in response to their efforts to organize town employees with the N.C. Public Service Workers Union-UE Local 150.

Denial of Bigelow’s appeal was recommended by a 3-2 vote, Clark’s by a 5-1 vote.

In his statement upholding the recommendations, Stancil wrote:

“The Town of Chapel Hill does not tolerate discrimination, harassment and other forms of mistreatment within its workforce or in its relationships with residents and visitors. …

“The Town of Chapel Hill does not interfere with the right of our employees to organize. We recognize that right and support it with such efforts as dues deduction from paychecks for those who choose that option and provision of space for employee organization news postings in Town facilities. We have an on-going expectation and practice of involving employees in decisions that affect them.”

Though Stancil had not yet released his decision, it seemed a foregone conclusion to those who gathered at First Baptist Church. Bigelow and Clark, now called the Sanitation Two, and their support team have stressed that, while disappointed, they’re undeterred.

The strategy now is to appeal to the public at large and to decide whether to file a suit against the town. The men also have filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“We’ve just begun,” McSurely told the crowd, composed of young and old, black and white, labor representatives from outside the area and longtime local social-justice activists. “We’re in this for the long haul.”

McSurely has spoken of a “deeper theme” to the men’s firings, rooted in what he describes as an ongoing history of discrimination against blacks by both the town and the university.

The rally began with a singing of the protest song “We Shall Not Be Moved.” McSurely then described the appeals-committee hearings. He said he believed it was an “embarrassment to all those associated with the town of Chapel Hill to call them hearings,” citing town legal adviser Tiffany Sneed’s use of anonymous witnesses to make statements against the men.

“Those of us who occasionally have glimpsed the town’s plantation practices toward its black workers were not surprised when it presented two anonymous female voices at the hearings as its main evidence against two black workers,” McSurely said this week.  

“And we were not surprised when the town attorney, who announced he was advising the volunteer citizens on the hearing board, found nothing wrong with this violation of the concept of due process and fair hearings that has been recognized since the Magna Carta.”

“I ask everybody here to stick with us as we dig in for a fight,” McSurely said Thursday night.

Curtis Gatewood, second vice president of the North Carolina NAACP, brought the assembled to their feet with a call to speak out on behalf of the men, saying, “It ain’t over till God says it’s over.”

Bigelow and Clark delivered brief remarks. “Don’t talk about it,” Bigelow said, “be about it.”

“It’s a lot bigger than Clyde and Kerry,” said Michelle Laws, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, “we’re fighting for social justice for all public workers.”

Laws said the men and their supporters are deliberating over next steps and that a legal defense team has been established. A collection was taken at the close of the evening, and Laws asked that people write letters to editors and express their views to town council members. She said that she’ll make an appeal for Stancil’s firing at the March 14 council meeting.

Laws also called for the repeal of N.C. General Statute 95-98, which prohibits collective bargaining for public workers.

“While there is no collective bargaining,” said activist and local NAACP officer Robert Campbell, “let us speak with a collective voice.”

PHOTO BY WILL BRYANT. Clyde Clarke (left) and Kerry Bigelow and their attorney, Al McSurely at a rally last Thursday night at First Baptist Church.

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