Union Shakedown Alleged At SC Employment Agency
One of South Carolina’s most corrupt, inefficient and incompetent bureaucracies is facing a whole new set of problems after several of its employees privately accused their new leader of pressuring them to join a bureaucratic union.
The S.C. Employment Security Commission – already in hot water for its catastrophic financial mismanagement and failure to successfully match S.C. workers with available jobs – now faces another potentially damaging scandal.
Specifically, several Employment Security employees (who spoke exclusively with FITS on condition of anonymity) say that a December 1 letter from the agency’s interim director, Samuel R. Foster, Sr., implies that employees who join a “bureaucratic association” will receive preferential treatment.
They also allege that Foster’s curiously-worded letter, obtained exclusively by FITS, has been accompanied by more “overt” appeals from government employees who are using taxpayer time and resources to “encourage” membership in the union.
Foster has been on the job for less than two months, incidentally, and this letter – his first formal communication to ESC employees – was sent three weeks after he replaced former director Roosevelt Halley, whose mismanagement of the agency has created a political firestorm in the state capital.
State lawmakers are ultimately responsible for the Employment Security Commission, appointing all three of its commissioners.
Not surprisingly, all three of those commissioners are former lawmakers, and each of them is currently drawing a $108,000 a year salary from the taxpayers.
Anyway, here’s the letter from Foster …
(click to enlarge)
Foster clearly wastes little time in getting to his point, which is to encourage his employees to join the International Association of Workforce Professionals (IAWP), a 13,000-member “professional association.”
“I hope that all our employees will be able to take a more active role in the growth and transition of this agency, and I truly believe that membership in IAWP is a solid step in that direction,” Foster writes.
“IAWP is the only organization that takes active participation in securing your job,” his inartfully-worded letter continues. “It is up to you and I to be active participants in helping secure workforce development services and funding that create our jobs.”
Huh?
In perhaps the most ill-advised reference of the letter, though, Foster tells his employees that paying $50 in annual dues to IAWP would “personally enrich your individual professional development.”
Finally, the letter directs ESC employees to call a fellow state employee, ESC staffer Tommy Minogue, on a taxpayer funded phone line. Minogue, who works in the ESC human resources office, also happens to be the SC Chapter Membership Chairman for IAWP.
How convenient, right?
We asked the ESC what a state employee was doing using taxpayer time and resources to sign up employees to join this bureaucratic union, but an agency spokesman merely said that IAWP was a “professional association” that the agency had been affiliated with “for years.”
Amazing.
This is worse than taxpayer-funded lobbying, people … it’s taxpayer-funded union recruitment, all expressly designed to suck more of your money into an agency that is failing miserably to do its job.
In addition to its financial woes, ESC has also repeatedly failed to place employees in available positions.
In fact, according to an exclusive report published by FITS in January, the agency was filling less than half of the job openings it was provided with over an 18-month period – this despite the fact that record numbers of South Carolinians were (and are) looking for work in the ongoing “Great Recession.”
Those numbers improved slightly over the summer (when fewer job openings were available), but over the last two months the ESC has reverted to form. According to September and October data (the latest available), the ESC’s “One-Stop” network has received 21,018 openings over the last two months.
How many of those job openings has the network filled?
Yeah … only 10,327.
The agency is also currently being investigated by the Legislative Audit Council (LAC), and is reportedly on the verge of facing a major “reverse discrimination” suit from an employee who was allegedly fired after refusing to fraudulently certify certain individuals for unemployment benefits.
More on that coming soon …
Obviously, scandal is no stranger to the ESC, but it’s no stranger to the Foster family, either.
Samuel Foster II, the son of the ESC interim director, was forced to resign from his position on the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees in July after federal agents charged him with bank fraud. USC is still facing scrutiny over its relationship with Foster’s bank, BB&T.
Stay tuned to FITS as we have much more information to bring you on this legislatively-controlled agency in future exclusive reports …
Comments
By hal on December 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The place is a snake pit. it needs a tough as nails director…to raise hell, kick but, and let the pink slips fly.
By New day dawning. on December 18th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Time to sweep the slate clean and start over. Placing Sam Foster as interim director smacks of further stupidity by this already inept commission.
By Andy Arnold on December 18th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Let’s just lay it on the line: This story is full of shit. Unions are organizations through which its members can collectively bargain with their employers. Unions, under the law, can become the bargaining representative on behalf of employees. You can call this a union just like you can call the SC Bar a union, a marriage a union, and the chamber of commerce a union. But, this organization looks like anything but a the traditional labor union. It has me questioning the credibility of all the stuff on this site.
On another note, based upon anecdotal experience, I suspect there may be something to the “reverse discrimination” claim. But, when I begin looking for credible information on the subject, I will be more skeptical of the information I get from FitsNews. Unfair, fine. Imbalanced, sure, it is your website. Dishonest, well, what’s the use.
By Ben on December 18th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Just eliminate the entire agency. Idoubt anyone(other than the employees) would miss it.
By Billy Bob on December 18th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Geeze – Andy, I usually don’t take Fit’s side on anything, but there seem to be some very serious problems here and this letter is definitely one of them!
By beentook2 on December 18th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Who gives a rat’s ass. Let them suck on the State’s tit till it shrivels up and drops off. If it ain’t Foster and the three dumb asses who call themselves “Commissioners” ripping off all they can stuff in their underwear, it will be someone else. These characters could care less about what I write, you write or anyone else writes. If someone 40 years ago had told them they had to pay up or get fired, they would have been marching in the streets screaming their collective heads off. Today, this will not get a ripple. Why, because the ones who could change the system are as back stabbing, cork screwing, double dealing as they are. If you steal from an honest man, he will try to get his money back honestly. If you steal from a crook, he won’t say a word. He just will find a way to steal it back. This week it is a toss up as to which is the biggest nest of cockroaches: Governor’s Office, State Legislature, ESC or Fairfield County School District. My vote goes to the fat bastards who call themselves legislators.
By Jeff on December 18th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
The IAWP (International Association of Workforce Professionals) is no more a union than the AMA (American Medical Association. The IAWP is essentially an association to educate these employment counselors to better do their job. See http://www.iawponline.com Isn’t that what we want the Employment office to do?
By the Goober on December 18th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
What would one expect, from a Greasy Good Ole Boy? Look at the pictures, included with Memo –> he wears Mayonnaise on his head!
I am surprised Foster is capable of Penning an inter-office memorandum, or a letter. his ways, and lack of Education will befuddle himself. He will Probably fall victim to his own ‘Lack of Penmanship’ skills.
By SCESCemployee on December 19th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
More importantly is how the extremely overpaid, smug, arrogant, and truly stupid commissioners, haley, marshall, price, and now foster, are allowed to lead SCESC employees and discourage new ideas. These sorry excuses for state employees are absurd. Someone needs to investigate the financial and travel fraud that has been going on for well over ten years.
By Neutral Reader on December 19th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
The Employment Security Commission has serious problems and should be completely revamped as a new workforce agency. Its current set-up with unintelligent commissioners as the “oversight” is a joke. The commissioners care only about preserving their jobs and nothing about the agency and the public they serve. They continue to abuse their power including consistently claiming travel expenses from their “home” cities even though two of them live in Columbia. They are also completely to blame for keeping someone as inept as Roosevelt Halley as the executive director all these years. He is the primary reason ESC has fallen to its current level of ineptitude.
Saying all this, IAWP is not a union and should not be construed as such. It is a non-profit, educational association. IAWP has a formal certification program, and sponsors numerous training programs to try to encourage employees to maintain and upgrade their professional skills. The attacks on this association by this website are totally unwarranted but the criticism for ESC should continue until it is reborn into new 21st-century agency.
By Wake-up Call on December 19th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
It’s about time those in Columbia whom we elected wake up, get off their behinds and do something about this agency. From all the corruption and cover-up in this agency by Halley, Marshall, Price, the Commissioners and many more of those in the Columbia office, its become an embarrassment to those hard working “on-line” staff working in the local offices. The crooks, liars, and thieves sit in their offices in Columbia making their fat paychecks and stealing from the taxpayers and already over-taxed business owners while those in the local offices work their fingers to the bone, get mistreated by customers and no one seems to care!!!!! When is SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE going to get bold enough to stand up, clean house and say this corruption will no longer be tolerated! I commend those who have come forward and spoken out “openly” about the wrong-doings going on in that agency. Many more need to follow instead of hiding their names and faces- for God’s sake, speak up for yourselves and what is morally and ethically right. If a man stands for nothing, he will fall for anything. Don’t let them do this to US anymore! Let’s join together and take it to the Statehouse in Columbia!
By Designated Driver on December 20th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Bitch still won’t give me head. Will, tell Bin to get down there and get to work.
By SCESCemployee on December 20th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Neutral Reader’s comments above are on the mark. Richardson is the one claiming travel reimbursement between her W. Cola condo and her home in York County. Outright fraud. Haley used a high power state auto for personal use for his entire tenure as executive director. State law requires him to reimburse the state for every single personal mile he enjoyed. The fraud going on at SCESC is easy to find – why is the state leadership ignoring SCESC? Because they too do not want anyone (the media!) to look at them also? It is easy to ascertain extremely low morale at the ESC. Talk with anyone not promoted in the last ten years by halley. Since the commissioners do not like marshal, it should be interesting what becomes of that smug character next year. And yes, IAWP is certainly not a union by any means, but membership appears to help in being in good graces with halley, and now foster.
By Lynn Simmons on December 20th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
This is not a Union. It is an organization that you are of no obligation to join. DHEC has them too but no one is obligated to join them. Fees are paid from the employees own pocket. It is illegal for State Employees to have a Union!