Union Endorsement Leaves Local Members Unsure Of Voting Obligations

WAUKESHA — A state employees union's decision to endorse a congressional challenger over incumbent Rep. Fitzgerald has generated 47 phone calls to the union's Waukesha chapter office, all variations on the same question: is this mandatory.

The Wisconsin Public Employees Council, Waukesha Chapter 19, announced its endorsement of a congressional challenger on Oct. 17. Chapter coordinator Carol Resnick said the first call came in nine minutes after the email went out, from a member who wanted to know if the union would know how she voted.

Resnick said she told the member no, that the ballot is secret and that is how voting works, and the member asked if she was sure. Resnick said she has been doing the job for eleven years and was, in fact, sure.

A clarification, requiring further clarification

By Oct. 20, the chapter had logged 31 calls and sent a clarification email to all 1,140 members explaining that the endorsement was a recommendation for members to "consider" when voting, not a binding instruction. The email generated 16 additional calls asking for a clearer definition of the word consider.

Gary Oleksy, a Backslide Way resident and 22-year member of the roads department, said he read the clarification email four times before calling Wednesday afternoon to ask the identical question he had asked Tuesday.

"I wanted to see if I'd get a different answer the second time," Oleksy said. "I did not. Carol was very patient about it, considering."

"I have explained the secret ballot to adults with pensions. This was not on my job description in 2014."

— Carol Resnick, union chapter coordinator

The suggestion-versus-requirement question

Several members compared the endorsement to the union's monthly newsletter, which includes a recommended reading list that Resnick said "maybe four people" actually follow. Donna Pilcher, a member in the assessor's office, said she assumed the endorsement carried the same weight as the newsletter's book picks until a coworker told her it was "more official than that."

"Nobody tells you where the line is," Pilcher said. "The newsletter says read this. The endorsement says consider this. Those sound close enough that I needed someone to draw me a diagram."

Resnick said she has not drawn a diagram but has considered it. The chapter's board meets Nov. 4 to discuss, among other agenda items, whether future endorsements should include a one-paragraph explainer defining the difference between a recommendation and an instruction.

A challenger named Beck

The challenger endorsed by the council, identified in union literature as Beck, is running against incumbent Rep. Fitzgerald in next month's election. Neither campaign's office responded to a request for comment on how a union local in Waukesha spent a week fielding voting-procedure questions about a federal race.

Resnick said the volume of calls has slowed to roughly three a day heading into next week, mostly from members asking whether the Nov. 4 board meeting is open to the public and, if so, whether attendance there is mandatory. Several of those callers, she said, asked the question twice in the same conversation, apparently out of habit by that point.

"I'm going to put that one in writing ahead of time," she said. "Optional. All caps, optional."