In one MSU staff union election this week, five incumbents were re-elected to its Executive Board — following a controversy surrounding an e-mail sent on the union's listserv.
On March 15, Chairman of the Administrative-Professional Association, Leo Sell, sent a personal e-mail to members of the union he had "marginal connection" with — about 200 of the union's 1,700 members.
Some union members who received the e-mail were upset because they could not respond or see other recipients of the message.
The APA chapter at MSU is a middle-level union, largely for clerical and technical faculty.
Among concerns of low voter turnout and reminders to return ballots, Sell wrote in the e-mail, "I am concerned about an attempt by way of the current ballot to replace current, experienced, diverse Executive Board members with people from a single unit, with a parochial interest and view, not to mention, NO experience in APA leadership or bargaining or otherwise.
"Should they be successful in whole or in part, it will weaken our union."
The union's current board has 11 women and two men. Members pay monthly dues of $54, bringing in about $1 million a year to the Michigan Education Association.
Union member Danny Layne thought the content of the e-mail was inappropriate, as well as the method used to send it.
"Leo's e-mail came, not endorsing someone, as much as it was cutting someone down and saying don't vote for them," said Layne, a hardware/software coordinator at MSU's Julian Samora Research Institute. "That ticked me off and a lot of other people, too."
Sell said his major concern was over the diversity of the ballot — the fact that five candidates, none of whom were incumbents, were running from one unit, the Physical Plant.
"There are over 250 departments on campus that employ Administrative-Professionals," Sell said Thursday in a formal statement. "To have four or five members on the Executive Board all from a single one of those would be grossly unfair and unrepresentative of the membership as a whole."
Three candidates — Michael Ramirez, Scott Kyes and Dale Seddon — felt Sell's e-mail influenced the outcome of the election, which they lost.
The three Planner/Inspector/Analyst II's felt it was unfair they lacked access to the list of members' e-mails.
"We have asked how many different ways to get a list of who our membership is," Kyes said. "As many ways as we can come up with to ask, we have been denied every time."
Sell said the listserv, which is to be used for association business, is a one-way tool for the union to communicate with its members. Sell said he could not give a list of union membership.
"We are not allowed to provide that information under the agreement with the university that gives us that information," Sell said.
A few days ago, Kyes filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the membership list.
"We tried to get the information, (but) everything seems to be a secret," Seddon said. "You can't have what we think should be open information as a member of the APA."
In his e-mail, Sell described how members could gain leadership experience before running for the board.
"I should tell you that the norm for becoming involved on the APA Board is to be appointed to a vacancy, to gain some initial experience," he said in the e-mail.
Some members said that type of thinking would prohibit new people from joining the board.
"I guess we're not supposed to go ahead and get on a ballot and get elected by our membership. I guess that's wrong," Kyes said. "We didn't realize that was wrong when we started."
Despite feelings that he was endorsing or criticizing certain candidates, Sell said he "at no point" made a specific endorsement or recommendation against any candidate.
