PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The American Federation of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has ordered the removal of Ernest Garrett as president of District Council 33, which represents Philadelphia’s blue-collar city workers.
The action comes after six DC 33 officials filed a complaint in October with the national union, accusing Garrett of misappropriating union funds. Garrett denied the charges and told a hearing officer in December that he was following standard practices long-established at DC 33.
In a decision on Tuesday, the hearing officer, Frank Piccioli, concluded that Garrett had violated union rules by not getting executive board approval for changing salaries, hiring relatives and others, and on spending for catering, bonuses and hoodies for members.
Piccioli wrote that he found no evidence that Garrett had personally benefited from the violations, so the penalty was lessened. Still, he ordered Garrett’s immediate removal and a four-year suspension from running for union office again.
“The only thing I ever did was try to do what was right by the people that put me in that position,” Garrett said, noting that the salary changes were reductions intended to save the union money. “If saving hardworking men and women their union dollars and not seeing them wasted was a bad decision, then I’ll live with that.”
The six members who brought the complaint included Vice President Omar Salaam, who took over Garrett’s position, and several others who had been running against Garrett in an upcoming union election.
Salaam declined to comment, saying his only concern right now is “the 9,000 hardworking members” of DC 33.
Their complaint had challenged the hiring or contracting of more than a dozen people for union jobs ranging from maintenance to chief financial officer — among them, Garrett’s son, Emir Garrett, who worked as a summer intern. They also raised questions about the sale of a parking lot at 48th and Ludlow streets, arrangements with the house catering service, run by Garrett’s sister-in-law, and a print shop in union headquarters run by the nephew of the union’s political director, Evon Sutton.
Garrett testified that many of those he hired had replaced the relatives of his predecessor, Pete Matthews, and that he had lowered their salaries.
Piccioli dismissed many of the charges but found that Garrett should have obtained board approval, even to lower salaries, as spelled out in union rules. Ironically, he said board approval would not have been needed if Garrett had replaced the former employees but not lowered their salaries.
“Brother Garrett’s defense that he relied on a practice established by his predecessors in office over multiple years does not justify his violations of the International Constitution,” Piccioli wrote.
Piccioli also said that Garrett created the appearance of nepotism by hiring his sister-in-law for catering and the appearance of “something improper” by spending almost half a million dollars on union hoodies from Sutton’s nephew.
Garrett said he would appeal.
“I have been the most open president,” Garrett said. “I bring everything to the board and unfortunately AFSCME, for whatever reason, didn’t see it that way.”