Saturday, April 16, 2011

Director of Communications Resigns

News or Propaganda?
The dominoes just keep falling.

Following the veto of Local 157 President/Director of Operations, Lawrence D'Errico, in the wake of Review Officer (“RO”) Dennis Walsh zealous investigations pertaining to mob influence over the New York City District Council of Carpenters, Audra Donohue, director of communications for the scandal-scarred carpenters union has stepped down and suddenly resigned on Thursday, April 14.

Donohue, “has decided to pursue other opportunities and we wish her the best of luck with all future endeavors.  The 8 years she spent creating and developing our Communications Department are greatly appreciated and she will be missed,” said Human Resources Director, Dana Brownstein in a written statement distributed to council employees and local unions.

Donohue is approximately the twenty-fifth council employee to have either resigned, been suspended, fired, or vetoed since the RO’s court-appointment in June 2010.

“The New York District Council and its locals have been living through troubled times in recent years, brought on by corruption of its previous leaders [. . .]. “Over the past year or so, we have begun to make progress in righting a lot of wrongs that have crippled the Council and our members," Supervisor Spencer said in a statement.

Many rank and file members have criticized Spencer’s dismal performance as supervisor, citing among other things, his continue support for council criminals who were co-conspirators in convicted Mike Forde's racketeering schemes, his failure to detect council criminals who embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars, his handling of our contract by unilaterally freezing and cutting our wages, failure to hold open meetings with the membership, lack of promised transparency, and not keeping the membership informed.

Donohue has also received criticism from the rank and file for running a propaganda Carpenter Magazine and website throughout the Forde years.

The District Council is seeking a replacement for Donuhue and has posted a job offering on Monster.com. In her absence, all communications-related concerns should be directed to newly hire Director of Operations, Matt Walker who replaced D’Errico.

click to enlarge.

6 comments:

  1. DROP DEAD UNITY TEAM !

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  2. Anonymous for some unexplained reason your comment was not posted...I had to re-post it.

    Audra Donohue's resignation as NYCDCC Communications Director coincides with Ballantyne's promise to heed members' continuing calls for more transparency.

    At the last R.O Forum he pledged to substantially increase disclosure of any or all relevant information by making it accessible on the NYCDCC website, as compiled extensively on a list proposed by Dan Franco.

    This gesture by our Chief Compliance Officer was was witnessed and endorsed by Dennis Walsh.

    One can surmise perhaps the incoming workload was an additional factor, among others, prompting Ms. O'Donnell to resign. Providing members with contextually appropriate information was not historically a task she did or was apparently accustomed to.

    We understand Ms. O'Donnell was doing her job and following orders. But, considering Ms. Donohue's Columbia University education, strong ties to NYC labor aristocracy, and proximity to NYCDCC lawyers, the probability increases that she must have consciously faced serious ethical dilemmas regarding her role within the prevailing corruption: demonstratively, as an educated insider the allegations against her of nepotism and complicity gain even credibility now.

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  3. wow... finally a well thought and well written possibility.

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  4. [sarcasm] I really like that having a background as a carpenter is not a qualification, what would a carpenter know about communicating with other carpenters???? [/sarcasm]

    I should submit my resume... Did I mention I would take the for for 70,000 plus benefits??

    ReplyDelete
  5. wow... finally a well thought and well written possibility.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am agree with john ! , You have a great blog.

    ReplyDelete

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