Thomas Breen photos
Harold Brooks; Malinda Figueroa.
A senior accountant with nearly three decades of city service is challenging an engineering executive assistant with two decades on the job for the presidency of the municipal clerical workers union.
On Thursday, Oct. 3, AFSCME Local 3144 members will head to the polls for the leadership election.
Local 3144 represents around 330 management and professional employees of city government, ranging from LCI neighborhood specialists to Building Department administrative assistants to parking enforcement supervisors.
The current union president, Malinda Figueroa, was first elected in 2017 in an upset win over longtime 3144 president Cherlyn Poindexter. She is running for a second two-year term. Figueroa has worked for the city for 20 years, and currently serves as an executive assistant in the Engineering Department.
She is facing a challenge this year from Harold Brooks, a 28-year city veteran who currently works as a senior accountant in the Finance Department. Brooks, currently the vice president of the union, was also the vice president when Poindexter helmed 3144.
“I have chosen to run for reelection because there is still much work to be done,” Figueroa told the Independent in a written statement. “We will continue to represent and bargain for all members fairly.”
She said she is most proud of “negotiating a beneficial contract for all members with a 9.75 percent raise which included retroactive pay, staving off union busting perpetuated by management since 2015 under the guise of the Petition, successfully [fighting] the City’s intention of limiting members’ 457 contributions by having a sole provider for the plan, organizing members by implementing a new member orientation, building an informative/navigate-able website and forming committees that were diverse and representative of our membership.”
She is running on a slate that includes Thomas Verderame for vice president, Dennice Pair for corresponding secretary, Billie Jo Wilson for treasurer, Marquis Reshard for District 2 representative, and Gwendolyn Busch Williams for District 5 representative.
“Our team is fully committed and stands in unity with all the members of Local 3144,” Figueroa wrote.
Brooks told the Independent that he’s running for president both to leverage his decades of union experience and advocacy, and to help usher in a new generation of future union leaders.
“I’m running to make a difference,” Brooks told the Independent on Thursday night after he testified in support of the proposed fire union contract at a Finance Committee public hearing. “I’m running to make the union stronger, to give the union a stronger presence. I’m fighting for fair wages, pension, and healthcare. From the newest member to the most senior member.”
Brooks said that 3144 suffers from some of the same challenges that fire union President Frank Ricci mentioned during his public testimony Thursday night: Senior employees are leaving, and union ranks are getting progressively younger and younger.
He said a goal of his is not only to try to retain longer-serving city staffers, but also train a new generation of employees to be active and engaged in the union.
“I’m not going to be with the city forever,” he said. “One of the things is: I have the knowledge. I have the experience. And with that knowledge and experience, my team also encompasses a lot of young people. [I want to] bring them on to teach them about the union message, the union way. It’s really about the preservation of life and sustaining good paying jobs. The city is a good place to live, a good place to work.” But, he said, the union always needs to be doing more to fight to sustain that decent pay, and for “decent and better medical.”
According to Brooks’s campaign flyer, he is running alongside Barbara Montalvo for vice president, Leanna Ambersley for recording secretary, Jeanette Pizarro for corresponding secretary, Jean Iannuzzi for treasurer, Nathaniel Hougrand for District 1 representative, Velisha Cloud for District 2 representative, Linda Hannans for District 4 representative, and Terry Cooper for District 5 representative.