Malden nonprofit’s cuts lead to anti-union retaliation charges
A Malden nonprofit headed by a former Deval Patrick secretary has let go four employees who say they were at the center of a drive to unionize its staff, immediately igniting accusations of anti-union retaliation at an agency already juggling budget woes.
Coleman Nee, a former secretary of Veterans’ Services and CEO at Triangle Inc., said escalating costs and shrinking philanthropic donations have opened a $500,000 hole in Triangle’s multimillion-dollar budget, forcing the agency — which helps people with disabilities find work — to lay off the four workers last week and save about $200,000.
But the employees immediately cried foul, saying they’ve been helping organize a push with SEIU Local 509 to unionize Triangle’s roughly 120-person, full-time staff. The union has filed a formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, and it plans to hold a rally at the nonprofit’s Malden headquarters this morning to protest the layoffs.
“I’m outraged. I truly believe what we were doing was protected,” said Bill Davis, 63, who was Triangle’s facilities manager. “The only four positions that were slated for layoffs were the four of us, the four keys in the organizing process.”
Amy Banelis, who has been an employment specialist at the nonprofit for nearly two years, said she was told last Tuesday that her position was being eliminated, roughly three weeks after her last review.
“We are talking with other staff, we are meeting on a regular basis, and we had gotten to the point where we ended up reaching out to the union,” said Banelis, 36, adding that they hoped by establishing a union, they could address staffing ratios and pay at the bargaining table.
“I think what we are doing is right and I also believed in the work that I do,” she said.
Jim Kane, Triangle’s director of community integration, and Joseph DiVincenzo, who was marketing manager, were also laid off.
Triangle officials held a meeting with managers in July to address what a spokeswoman called “rumors” of union organizing. Nee said the session was intended to instruct them about the “do’s and don’t’s” of managing in potentially unionized environment but that no one from the union had officially contacted the nonprofit.
Officials say they classify three of those laid off as managers, and emphasized that under that designation they aren’t permitted to participate in union activities. But they also repeatedly denied that the union efforts had any bearing on the decision to let employees go as they sought to cut costs.
State contracts accounted for about 70 percent of Triangle’s $9.8 million in revenues in 2016. Dot Joyce, a Triangle spokeswoman, said the organization is dealing with a 2 percent drop in its state and federal contracts for this fiscal year.
“I don’t like doing layoffs,” Nee said in a phone interview. “We did our best not to affect any direct care workers, and we did out best to try to limit it to managers.”
He called it the union’s right to bring a complaint against the agency.
“We’ll deal with it as it comes,” he said. “The numbers don’t lie. We’re in a really challenging fiscal environment.”