Attachment A
Sequence of Events Culminating In Town's Wrongful Termination
of Rev. Kerry Bigelow and Mr. Clyde Clark on 10/29/2010.
Charging Parties Kerry Bigelow and Clyde Clark allege as follows:
Kerry Bigelow

  1. On 31 July 2007 the Town of Chapel Hill ("Town") hired Rev. Kerry Bigelow as a Solid Waste Collector. Solid waste collectors, as opposed to 'operators' or truck drivers, is what the Town calls the men who walk the streets of Chapel Hill every week, wrestling the trash and garbage in the green bins into large trucks--one of the dirtiest and most physically demanding jobs in the Town. Until Rev. Bigelow filed a race discrimination complaint against the Town in February 2010, the Town had evaluated him as an "outstanding" employee.
  1. Rev. Bigelow is married and has three children and lives in Burlington, N.C.
  1. Before the Town hired him, Rev. Bigelow worked for the City of Burlington as an Equipment Operator for 18 years, driving heavy boom trucks and operating rear end loaders. He hauled trash in Burlington during the day, when he and his wife were beginning their family, and attended Shaw Divinity University off and on for five years to become a minister. After 18 years driving a trash truck in Burlington, he decided to apply to the Town of Chapel Hill. Although no driver jobs were open at the time, the Town promised him he would be treated with equal opportunity the next time an Operator job came open, and hired him with top pay for a Collector.

Clyde Clark

  1. Mr. Clyde Clark is part of a large family of Chapel Hill natives, which includes the late John and Rebecca Clark, who were active in civil rights and labor struggles against the University from the 1930's until their deaths. (See Paragraph 10)
  1. Clyde Clark, like many native Chapel Hill African American men, had few employment choices if he were to remain in his home town, other than as a menial laborer for the Town, the University, or the Hospital. He became a "collector" for the Town's Public Works Department in 1998, and has walked and dumped trash for the last 12 years.
  1. Mr. Clark was raised in public housing, Craig-Gomain Projects in the Northside neighborhood. He attended Chapel Hill H.S. shortly after it was desegregated in the early 1980's and then hauled trash and buffed floors at the Taco Bell on Franklin Street, mopped floors at the Marriott Cafeteria on campus, and dug ditches for a construction company in Raleigh. In 1998, the Town hired him as a Collector. Three of Clark's friends who worked for the Town -- Roy Atwater, Nate Davis, and John Davis – served as his references. The trash collector's job is the only job with benefits he has ever had.
  1. Like Rebecca and John Clark and most long-time African American residents of Chapel Hill, Clyde Clark loves and hates the Town. Although it is his hometown, where his family and friends have many good memories, it's history of segregation has left many open wounds. For several years, Clyde Clark has been interested in organizing a union at the Town, to help provide workers with some protection as they worked to dismantle the vestiges of segregation in the Town through collective action.

Bigelow and Clark

  1. Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark became friends in 2008, and gave each other support in their effort to improve the working conditions for the lowest paid workers in the Town. Mr. Clark was a witness to key events involved in Rev. Bigelow's efforts to get a promotion. The two men helped other workers file grievances, and were each other's representatives in grievances they filed. They challenged safety violations, grievance procedure violations, and the race discrimination and harassment that has been a hallmark of the Public Works Department for a long time.
  1. The Town made a decision sometime in early 2010 and hired a private investigator to build large dossiers against each man to stop their protected challenges to the unsafe, racially discriminatory practices of the management in the Public Works Department. This campaign of retaliation culminated late Friday afternoon, 29 October 2010, when the Town called them at their homes and told them to pick up their termination papers—throwing both men on the street during the nation's worst economic depression since the 1930's.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

  1. There is a long history of race discrimination of African Americans at the University of North Carolina (there were no Black students at UNC until the NAACP sued and three young men were enrolled in 1955; no Black faculty or administrators until much later). When the Town of Chapel Hill began taking over some of the services that the University had provided, it adopted the University's rigid segregation system. Through the 1980's, with few exceptions, the only jobs available for Black men at the Town were dirty, menial jobs, such as garbage and trash collectors, now called "sanitation" or "solid waste collectors." At all times since its inception, the Public Works Department, was predominantly African American, whereas its management team was virtually all white.

(See the late Dr. Kenyon Chapman's PhD. Dissertation, Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, on line at

  1. In the 1990's, when 35 African American Public Works employees filed a series of race discrimination grievances and an EEOC charge of discrimination, the Town placed a highly respected African American into a top management position at Public Works and began regular meetings with leaders of the new Black Public Works Association (BPWA). Although these meetings helped prevent many problems, and quickly resolved many more, there was a good ol' boy group of managers who did not like having to sit across the table and be talked to as equals by their Black co-workers. Not only did the vestiges of the Jim Crow salary scales remain, but the vestiges of white supremacy remained in the attitudes and thoughts of many of the supervisors and managers.
  1. The Town has fended off efforts by its Black and other workers to collectively bargain to better their pay and working conditions by citing a 1959 law, passed as the modern Civil Rights Movement was just hitting North Carolina. Those who are awared of the racial history of the state call it Jim Crow 95-98. It prohibits public employees from collectively bargaining with their employers.
  1. Because of the history of Chapel Hill's treatment of its Black workers, this law has a racially-discriminatory impact on them. Towns such as Chapel Hill, where the economy is based on public agencies, can maintain its historically racialized labor policies without facing organized opposition through collective bargaining.
  1. In 1996, after the University settled a historic challenge to its racialized employment system by 400 Black UNC Houskeepers, the Housekeepers Association and then the new Public Service Union UE-150 helped spark a drive to repeal Jim Crow 95-98.
  1. G.S. 95-98 violates International Human Rights Treaties. In the 48 states that have public employee collective bargaining, most workplace problems are quickly resolved between shop stewards and supervisors, according to a contractual grievance procedure. But, in the last two states that inhibit such face-to-face negotiations, North Carolina and Virginia, powerful forces who want to maintain racialized job systems that were put in place during Jim Crow, remain adamantly opposed to repealing this vestige of that ugly era.
  1. A few years ago Mayor Kevin Foy and other Town leaders tried to persuade the state to exempt the Town from Jim Crow 95-98, so the Town could experiment with collective bargaining. They believed that many of the day-to-day problems that arise when an agency deals with the public could be dealt with across the table, based on the principle that examining mutual problems increases mutual respect between the workers and management.
  1. In November 2007 the Town Manager promulgated a policy stated: "Respect for each other is a basic value and the foundation for creating a better place to work." Many workers believed this "shared value" would be the basis for new initiatives to meet regularly, and establishing mutual respect betwee workers and management.
  1. In September 2008, Rev. Bigelow's Supervisor gave him an "Outstanding" rating for that year, and wrote: "Kerry is a very fine employee. Professional, treats all people with respect, proficient with all equipment." Bigelow continued to receive excellent performance until February 2010.

Town Hires Private Investigator

  1. In May 2009 the Town signed a secret contract which seemed to indicate it was no longer interested in this move toward a mutually respectful workplace. The contract was between the "Town" and "Capital Associated Industries", hereinafter "CAI." It provided for a payment of up to $60,00 for "any individual project" with a generalized mandate to CAI to take on "a variety of unspecified human resource consulting services to the Town as needed." It was to remain in effect through June 30, 2011.
  1. CAI advertises on its website, inferring constructive knowledge by the Town leadership, that "preventing Unions" from being formed in municipalities is one of its main purposes. It offers classes in "Staying Union Free," "Basic Steps in Union Prevention," and "Management's Role in Union Avoidance." CAI is led by Bruce Clark, who is also on the Board of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which leads the fight against unions and other worker associations nationally.
  1. In December 2009, the Town posted vacant job position # 23115, a Solid Waste Equipment Operator III. Rev. Bigelow applied. His application reminded the Town he had diven a rear end loader truck with a crew of men, a boom truck and an automated garbage truck during the 18 years he had collected trash in Burlington, that he had attended Shaw Divinity University off and on for five years, and completed 304 hours of MTA Tractor Trailer Diver Program in 1985.
  1. The Town found him to be qualified for the position and he was interviewed. Jeff Allen (W) closed his interview notes by writing that Rev. Bigelow "has a lot of driving experience," and "Has never operated front loader." Larry Strowd (B) closed his interview sheet by noting: "Kerry is a great person for the job. Have drove heavy truck and been on the job a long time. Kerry has a good attitude about the job."
  1. A white applicant with less education, less job experience and less heavy driving experience than Rev. Bigelow was selected.
  1. On 11 February 2010 Rev. Bigelow was told the Town had selected the less qualified white man for the promotion.
  1. On 12 February 2010, Rev. Bigelow filed a grievance with his supervisors, reminding them of his vastly superior truck driving and public service experience, and alleged the town had made a "racist decision."
  1. When no written response was received, Rev. Bigelow filed a Step 2 grievance with his Department head on 12 March 2010. It said his supervior was "not very concerned for the reason I did not get a reply back from the supervisor that I had previously filed my grievance about. It has been more than 3 weeks since I filed the grievance and have heard nothing. For these reasons I am appealing to the Department head." "I expect to hear from the Department heard, and not be held back or side-tracked or given any excuses and to be given an answer very soon without any farther delay. I expect the job."
  1. The Town shown Rev. Bigelow no respect again. The Town gave no formal response to him for over three months. It was late June, 2010, long after the CAI's private investigator had been directed to dig up any dirt he could find, that the Town provided Rev. Bigelow with a response.
  1. The Town's personnel policies provide that responses to grievance must be made within a couple of weeks.

The Town's Retaliation Campaign

  1. Although the Town could not find the time to prepare a written response to Rev. Bigelow's two grievances, it found plenty of time to push forward its campaign of retaliation against him and his friend, Clyde Clark. The campaign appeared to employ four classic tactics of outside anti-union groups, such as the CAI, that sell their private investigators to private and public enterprises experiencing "labor problems."
  1. On information and belief, the Town met with a CAI Private Investigator, Mr. von der Lippe, who charged the town $200 per hour and collectively bargained a strategy to (a) deflect Rev. Bigelow's meritorious grievance of racism; (b) stir up racism by placing the blame on Rev. Bigelow for the white worker's loss of the promotion he thought he had won; (c) intimidate and frighten other Black workers who were watching whether Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark's grievancess would do any good, with the aim of convincing the other workers that "you can't beat the system;" and (d) scare the wits out of any worker who might be considering joining the Union.
  1. On information and belief, it was decided that although Rev. Bigelow's friend, Mr. Clark, was a member of the highly respected Clark family who had deep roots in the Black community in Chapel Hill, Mr. Clark must be targeted also. Mr. Clark had been a witness to many of the unsafe and discriminatory acts that had involved both men on their route. Mr. Clark, like his aunt Rebecca, was not afraid of any intimidation and believed that the Union was the way to go, so he had to be sacrificed along with Rev. Bigelow in order to get the rest of the Department back in line.
  1. On information and belief, some of the Management in the Town, its Human Resources Department which always did Management's bidding, and some of the white men under the Black Director of Public Works were aware of this retaliatory campaign. The Human Resources Director, Ms. Valerie L. Meicher, signed a contract with CAI on 24 March 2010, with the CAI agent, Molly G. Hegeman, after the negotiations to target Bigelow and Clark were completed.

Termination Based on von der Lippe Report

  1. Mr. von der Lippe's expertise in Union Prevention and Worker Intimidation can be seen in the classic Report he prepared for the Town Attorney on 13 October 2010, filed a day after the Department Head gave Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark notice to attend a "pre-disciplinary conference." In other words, it was a foregone conclusion the men were going to be fired, based on a report that had not yet been submitted.
  1. Although Mr. von der Lippe was authorized to look into "recent allegations in the Public Works Department" presumably before the date of the authorization on 24 March 2010, virtually all his 13 October 2010 Report relates to events that took place long March 2010. In fact, Mr. von der Lippe's 14-page report starts by saying "Since July 2010, a series of complaints had been filed by several different citizens of Chapel Hill." The Lippe report focuses on the complaints of a resident about an incident that took place when V. P. Joe Biden visited Chapel Hill on July 22, 2010, four months after the "recent allegations in the Public Works Department" that occurred before April 2010.
  1. The Lippe report focuses on statements allegedly said by either Mr. Clark or Mr. Bigelow when a town resident (R1) asked them to help clean up their street because Mr. Biden was going to visit a neighbor on that street the next day 22 July 2010. R1 apparently called the Public Works Secretary on July 22 and, according Mr. von der Lippe's version of what the secretary told him of what R1 told her, R1 felt threatened because, after asking the crew for help in "removing a little more yard waste" because Mr. Biden's visit to a neighbor, the "crew on the back of the truck . . .lamented that he was not coming here to 'see the common man.'" Mr. Von der Lippe lamented in his report that he was not provided with any notes about the Town's follow-up on the incident.
  1. Mr. von der Lippe reported that he and Mr. Norris interviewed R1 at the R1 residence on 27 September 2010. R1 told the two interviewers that, two months earlier on or about 21 July 2010, after R1 told the sanitation workers that Biden was visiting R1's block the next day and asked if they could clean up some debris on the street, the workers asked where Mr. Biden would be visiting because they would like to attend because "the Vice President should visit with the 'common man.'"
  1. From the time Mr. von der Lippe was hired to compile a dossier on Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark, through the time his 14-page report was finished on October 13th, no agent of the Town, including von der Lippe, gave Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark any notice of any resident complaints or co-worker complaints against them.
  2. Mr. Clark filed several grievances during the same period, including:

*On 12 March 2010, he reported a series of Safety violations, citing the OSHA law, including that his truck dirver backed up 31 times with people on back of the truck on his Tuesday route, 14 times on dead end streets, forces collectors to drag bins across Martin Luther King Blvd, a four-lane road, near Estes Drive. On 12 February 2010, Mr. Clark told Mr. Harv Howard, his Superintendent, to discuss these safety issues. Mr. Howard showed no interest in the OSHA complaints, and turned the conversation to Mr. Clark's "past history and how he had helped." Then Mr. Howard told Mr. Clark: Don't let Kerry Bigelow put you into something you can't get out of."
*On 19 March 2010, Mr. Clark grieved that Mr. Howard was creating a hostile work environment because Howard had called a Safety Meeting at 7 a.m. On Thursday morning 18 March 2010. Supervisor Larry Strowd told the guys they had to come to the meeting because "Bigelow and me were messing up everything for the guys, and also said that the guys would probably end up working 10 hours a day and they were angry." Mr. Clark repeated his OSHA report in this Grievance.
*On 15 April 2010, Rev. Bigelow and Mr. Clark filed a grievance against Harv Howard, for not following the grievance procedure.