Milia has been making the local news lately, albeit anonymously....

COTS workers unhappy
Published: Saturday, November 11, 2006
By John Briggs Free Press Staff Writer

Staff workers at COTS, The Committee on Temporary Shelter, complaining they have been shut out of the agency's policy decisions and cowed into silence, have gone public with their complaints and announced they intend to become members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. "A significant crisis is brewing at COTS," said state Rep. Mark Larson. "The workers are quite prepared to go out on strike."Larson, Rabbi Joshua Chasan of Ohavi Zedek Synagogue and City Councilor Tim Ashe became aware of the discontent at COTS after workers asked their help in mediating between workers and the non-profit independent agency's board. Harold Kaplan, a 15-year worker at COTS, said workers want to communicate regularly and directly with the COTS board, rather than only through Executive Director Rita Markley, "and we want our voice to be respected and protected." A veteran worker was rebuffed by Markley after making a similar request during an August retreat for COTS management and staff, Kaplan and COTS case manager Emily Casey said. The worker was fired and escorted out of the COTS offices. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Kaplan said.Markley said the worker in question was not fired in retribution for her remarks during the retreat, but was laid off to make room for a new fund-raiser. COTS, which had revenues and expenses of approximately $1.9 million last year, was formed in 1982 to provide shelter and other help to Burlington's homeless. Its 16-person board plans to make the unionization demands the main topic of its meeting Thursday morning. Markley said the meeting will be closed to the public. Markley said she first learned of the workers' intent to unionize on Oct. 20, the day after the COTS board approved a new budget that included pay raises for the workers. "The next day, the board and I were notified the staff were forming a union," she said. "We were completely stunned. There was not a glimmer of this until we got a call from Rabbi Chasan. No, 'Hey, Can we talk?' We're doing our best to assess the situation and make the best decision for COTS and the people we serve." Kaplan and Casey said Markley became aware of worker unhappiness no later than the August retreat because she refused to allow discussion of the complaints during the retreat. Chasan said he and Larson met with members of the executive committee of the COTS board at the end of October and recommended that the board voluntarily agree to have the UEW represent the workers. He and Larson told the board it "would be a terrible mistake" to fight unionization because it would divert COTS from its mission, divide the larger community and cost money COTS doesn't have to spare. Casey and Kaplan said 80 percent of the full- and part-time workers at COTS already have joined the UEW. Their grievances, they said, include poor communication at the agency, with Markley the prime communicator to the board and the public and from the board to workers. They also said the agency needs a formalized grievance policy to ensure rules are applied consistently. "If they say, 'No, we're not going to recognize the union,' we're not going to go on working like this," Casey said.

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