Union plans to challenge YSU’s firing of its chief

Photo

Ivan Maldonado

By Harold Gwin

The president of the Association of Classified Employees has been on paid administrative leave for four months.

YOUNGSTOWN — A labor union at Youngstown State University plans to challenge the university’s firing of its president.

YSU notified Ivan Maldonado, 41, of Boardman, of his termination effective July 6, charging him with misfeasance (performing a lawful act in an illegal manner), malfeasance (wrongdoing or misconduct by a public official) and nonfeasance (failure to act) as well as incompetency and neglect of duty in his job as an employee of the payroll department.

The union, the Association of Classified Employees, plans to file a grievance over the termination and fight the university’s decision with every legal action it can, said Helen Trapp, Ohio Education Association’s labor relations consultant for the 400-member ACE union. The union includes clerical, secretarial, maintenance, groundskeeping, graphic artists and other staff. The OEA is the statewide education union.

There was no progressive discipline in Maldonado’s case, Trapp said, claiming that he has had “glowing” job evaluations over his 20 years of service. He’s never had a bad evaluation, nor has he ever been disciplined, she said.

The union sees this as retaliation, Trapp said, characterizing the allegations against him as “minor errors.”

“We’ve all seen this coming. It was just a matter of time,” she said.

The university reported that Maldonado did receive an informal verbal warning related to an alleged threatening telephone call to another university employee in 2007.

Maldonado declined to comment on his termination at the advice of his legal counsel.

In its termination letter, the university said that Maldonado “threatened and menaced” Kay Helscel, another ACE member in a March 10 telephone call relating to a letter of agreement Maldonado had signed last November with the then-chief human resources officer for the university.

The university added that, on March 11, Maldonado “made physically threatening statements and lewd, indecent or obscene statements” referring to other university employees during a telephone call with Charlene Yusko, another ACE employe, again related to that letter of agreement.

In addition, Maldonado made “significant” errors in his job, including failing to follow court-ordered wage garnishments and certifying false information to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, according to YSU.

Maldonado, elected president of ACE in 2007, and the university have been openly at odds since shortly after ratification of a new three-year ACE contract last year.

The university said Maldonado had “incorrectly received” a pay increase through a new pay scale included in that contract that raised his annual wage from about $60,000 to more than $81,000.

The university said the pay scale in the contract and ratified by the YSU Board of Trustees wasn’t exactly the same scale it had intended to be part of the agreement.

The university unilaterally cut Maldonado’s pay in December, prompting the ACE union to file breach of contract grievances. His annual wage was $82,613 at that time, according to the university. The university cut it by $21,000.

The situation worsened in March when Maldonado was accused of making the above-mentioned telephone calls related to an issue involving a letter of agreement that he and Craig Bickley, former chief human resources officer for the university, signed regarding the position of Christine Domhoff, former ACE president.

The university put Maldonado on paid administrative leave at that point.

Domhoff was president of the ACE union when, in the midst of negotiations on a new contract, the university terminated her position effective June 30, 2005, saying it was an externally funded post and the money that funded it was no longer available.

Domhoff challenged the university’s action, and, in a May 2006 decision, an arbiter for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service ordered her reinstated.

Maldonado is still the union president, said Brenda Scarborough, ACE union vice president.

She noted that he is running for re-election as president this month, challenged by Brian Brennan who served as union president in the late 1990s. He could be elected and serve despite his termination, as long as he has legal recourse to challenge the action.

, Domhoff said.

gwin@vindy.com