DOUG CAINE FIRED,… BUT WHY?/ONE THREAT GONE

TITLE: Doug Caine fired!,… but why?

There has certainly been a great deal of discussion in our
Local concerning what happened at the Board meeting this
last Tuesday, May 14th. At last Tuesday’s Board meeting
members presented evidence that led directly to the dismissal
of Local 47 Office Manager Doug Caine.

I.THE BACKGROUND
II. THE INVESTIGATION
III. THE BOARD MEETING
IV. THE MAIN FELONIES (Forgery and Grand Theft)
V. THE AFTERMATH
VI. THE FUTURE

At the Local membership meeting of April 24th, a motion was
passed requiring the Board to investigate whether someone within
the Local created the false e-mail address attempting to pass
itself off as this Committee. The email sent from this imposter
contained a letter sent from Local 47 member Charles Fernandez
which was initially sent to only eight officers of the Executive
Board. The email sent by the copycat also contained President
Espinosa’s reply to that letter, which was never received by Charles Fernandez by Post Office or email. Presumably the letter was
intercepted before getting out of the Local, but this is only a theory.

The imposter had to have access to Mr. Fernandez’ letter, President Espinosa’s reply AND the email addresses of Local 47 members.
This was a small circle of people including those on the Board, those
who work within the offices of the executive officers and, IF both
letters happened to be left at a copy machine, someone else within
the Local. No one outside of the Local received President Espinosa’s
reply until the imposter email was sent to a large number of the members
on March 15th, 2006.

The person who created the email showed a willingness to misuse
private correspondence and private member information to attempt to discredit another entity.

Though the implication was that someone WITHIN THE LOCAL was willing
to do this, the Board was seemingly willing to “sit on their hands”
for three weeks, until the President returned from two weeks in Europe.
The fear that the person would use members’ info again didn’t seem to
be of serious concern to them.

This likelihood WAS of paramount concern to the Committee and other
Members however.

We decided not to wait.

II. THE INVESTIGATION

Combining forces with a number of members inside and outside of the Committee, we made a short list of those we felt would have had the expertise and desire to perpetrate the false email. After an
exhaustive search of public records, a Local 47 employee was discovered
to have an extensive record of criminal conviction. The accuracy of the information was verified by a second source.

We also were informed by legal counsel that until we turned over the information to the Local, WE would be liable should the suspected perpetrator do anything else illegal. We were legally obligated to
turn over our information to the Board.

Please note that according to Federal Labor Law, a convicted felon cannot work in any capacity at any Union Local until 13 years after the conviction date. The employee in question was convicted in 1999.

III. THE BOARD MEETING

This past Tuesday members spoke at the Board meeting.

David Schubach spoke eloquently and effectively in reminding the
Board that the membership mandate on the location of the referral service
is NOT AN OPTION. The Board has no choice but to put the office back to the membership mandated position or be guilty of breaking their oaths of office to uphold and respect the membership of this Local. It’s been over 20
days since the meeting and NO action has been taken to fulfill their obligation.

Lisa Haley then discussed an e-mail the Overture refused to print that
sang the praises of the upswing in SELA contract submissions to the
referral service (Before Errol Henry was fired) in the last 2 years and encouraging younger musicians to join. Serena was reminded yet again
that the only two reasons a letter can be denied publication, according to Article V, Sec. IV(i) of the Local 47 bylaws, is if it constitutes a violation of Federal Law or might involve the Local or any member thereof in litigation or bring either into disrepute. Neither of these arguments applied to Lisa’s letter and they had to agree to print it. One would wish this problem wouldn’t repeatedly crop up with letters to the
Overture that give info some in the administration don’t want out there.

**IMPORTANT POINT**
When the appointment with the Board was made the previous week, it was
made clear that the two subjects for the agenda were membership concerns
and personnel issues. At approx 10:25am Tuesday morning, AFTER the Board meeting had begun, The members were called and told that personnel issues was being taken off the agenda and we could not talk about them.

From virtually the moment Charles Fernandez stood up, the Board attempted
to prevent him from speaking. He had to force the issue, arguing that few things concern the MEMBERSHIP more than the safety and security of their personal information and that their information was vulnerable. Together with the other speakers the members persisted and the evidence was presented.

The Board didn’t want to hear a word, but having the information made
THEM liable if anything else happened.

President Espinosa had no choice but to contact the Local’s legal
counsel Lewis Levy. Mr. Levy informed President Espinosa that they
must ask the employee directly. When asked about the information, Doug
Caine admitted the convictions were his.

According to President Espinosa, Doug Caine was immediately fired, his
office closed and his belongings removed.

IV. THE MAIN FELONIES
Though the explanation currently on the local website intimates that the “felony” that got Caine fired was related to drugs, the Felonies on his three page rap sheet of convicted and dismissed crimes that bothered US were his convictions for Felony Forgery and Felony Grand Theft (Not-auto).
We did not have the intension of mentioning his specific crimes, but since the President is trying to mischaracterize the severity of Doug Caine’s crimes, we felt no choice but to ONCE AGAIN set the record straight for the Local.

V. THE AFTERMATH

The administration never did a background check on Mr. Caine, so for
the past several years a convicted felon has had access to the personal
and private information of all 9000 members. The intimidation, games, threats and harassment of our employees by Mr. Caine had been appalling
and inexcusable but he was seemingly given carte blanche. He was never disciplined by the current administration in any serious way for ANY of
his inappropriate actions. Our officers are ultimately responsible for the actions of all our employees.

The employees that Doug Caine fired and disciplined were never given
the opportunity to defend themselves in front of the Board. The Board accepted Doug Caine’s evaluation of the employees’ job performances
and allowed them to be fired. Most recently Mr. Caine’s intimidation resulted in nine-year employee John McMahon (The Directory Office)
quitting.

Perhaps the Board honestly did not know the extent of Doug Caine’s
actions, but the increased number of firings should have been a red
flag.

For all the negative actions committed by Doug Caine to our employees
and members while he was at our Local, please keep in mind that he
had to have been acting on directions from one of the executive
officers.

VI. THE FUTURE

All Local 47 members should be very concerned that our personal
information including social security numbers was so vulnerable for
so long. We should be equally concerned that the Board seemed to have
no problem letting weeks go by with no investigation knowing that
someone, possibly within the Local, was able and willing to misuse
member information.

As always the Local is more than welcome to comment or attempt to
refute anything they do not believe is a fair description of what transpired.
We will print it verbatim.

It is a shame that Local 47 members themselves had to spend there
own money and donate their own hours (and still are) to do what
the Board should have been more than anxious to do.

If you have questions, please write to us AND/OR call the Local and
speak to the officers. The more you know about the situation from
both sides the better you will be able to judge what transpired
impartially.

One threat to our Locals’ members has been removed, but there
is much more work to do. We have a membership meeting on July 24th,
please make plans now to be there.

Thank you for reading!,

THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47

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