CWA joins suit to make public Corzine's e-mail
His ex-girlfriend had no authority to bargain with him on her own, the national union said.
A state worker union president who is Gov. Corzine's ex-girlfriend had no right to personally discuss recent state worker contract negotiations with the governor, the national Communications Workers of America union said yesterday.
Involving itself in a Republican lawsuit seeking to make public e-mails and other written communications between Corzine and Carla Katz, the national CWA filed court papers stating Katz misrepresented her bargaining authority.
Katz contends the communications should remain private because they involve confidential contract talks, but the national CWA argued only the national union had power to negotiate and rules prohibited members from individually and secretly communicating with the governor.
In its filing, the national CWA said it filed the brief to clarify the CWA's bargaining procedures and to ask Katz's attorneys to amend their court papers to change their depiction of Katz's authority.
"Carla Katz's legal claims in this case blatantly misrepresent the collective bargaining responsibilities of her local and the national union under CWA's structure, and they are a thinly veiled attempt to justify her effort to circumvent the state worker bargaining committee last winter," said Chris Shelton, CWA District 1 vice president.
He said it was "intolerable to have one local president out of seven purporting to represent the interests of all 40,000 CWA state workers in unauthorized, secret, sidebar contacts with any representative of management, let alone the governor."
Katz attorney Sidney Lehmann said Katz did nothing wrong.
"Katz not only has the right to speak for her members fully, but she is legally and constitutionally obligated to do so," Lehmann said. "That's what good union leaders do every day of the week."
This isn't the first dispute between Katz and CWA officials. Katz opposed the state worker contract negotiated earlier this year that increased pay but sliced health and pension benefits. Katz campaigned against it, but it was approved by workers in April. The Legislature and Corzine approved it in June.
"This is a thinly veiled political hatchet job for our local's vocal opposition to a bad contract, which we saw as going way too far in health-care cutbacks," Katz said.
The lawsuit was filed in May by Tom Wilson, the state Republican Party chairman. He asked Superior Court Judge Paul Innes to make public Corzine's e-mails with Katz, alleging they could have tainted state contract talks. Katz is president of Communications Workers of America Local 1034, the largest state worker local.
Wilson said Katz should release the e-mails and prove she did nothing wrong.
"Nothing in the law prevents Ms. Katz from voluntarily disclosing all her e-mails with the governor and his staff," Wilson said. "Her credibility would be greatly improved if she did so."
Wilson, arguing the e-mails are public information, sued after he and several media outlets, including the Associated Press, were denied copies of e-mails by the administration.
Corzine contends the communications with Katz are private under privileges afforded governors, while Katz claims they must remain private because they're personal and involve confidential contract negotiations.
Corzine's self-appointed Ethics Advisory Panel in May ruled the e-mails with Katz neither violated state law nor ethics rules. Yesterday, Wilson asked a judge to rule the panel subject to state open public records laws and that Corzine waived his right to keep the e-mails private when he let the panel review them.
Corzine contends the panel isn't subject to open public records laws and that he never waived his right to keep the e-mails private.
Corzine, 60, and Katz dated from 2002 to 2004, when Corzine was a U.S. senator.
He became governor in January 2006.
Katz, 48, received the large sums of money from Corzine as he started his gubernatorial bid in 2005. Corzine and Katz have refused to specify the gifts.