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A spokesperson for the union that represents city employees on Wednesday alleged that the five employees fired from Richmond’s Department of Finance this week were “denied union representation.”
“(On Tuesday), a department director spread misinformation within the department and led union members to believe that they were without representation; a fact that is easily disproven upon examination of the (union) contract,” the spokesperson said. “We are extremely disappointed with the City of Richmond and their union-busting tactics.”
Asked whether the employees had been refused a union representative when they were terminated, Deputy Communications Director Margaret Ekam said the city “is not able to comment on the specifics … because it’s a personnel matter.”
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“The City values unions and the collective bargaining process, and it has fully complied with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement,” Ekam said.
Mayor Levar Stoney was asked about the firings during a news conference at City Hall on Wednesday. He confirmed that they had taken place, but said he was not sure of when they had occurred or exactly how many employees were let go.
He said any employee who does not meet the city’s “standard of excellence” will no longer be employed.
Mayor Levar Stoney addresses issues including finance department firings, the city’s purchasing card program violations and the meals tax controversy during a news conference at City Hall on Wednesday.
MIKE KROPF, TIMES-DISPATCH
WTVR reported that several of the fired employees told reporter Tyler Layne they were subjected to “chaotic working conditions and antiquated systems.”
But at the Wednesday news conference, Stoney denied that there is a leadership issue in the finance department and said its director, Sheila White, is the best the city has had in “a decade plus.”
“She’s willing to run into the fire for the fix,” Stoney said of White. “There are not a lot of people who are willing to do that, and it means sometimes people are going to get mad at you.”
The firings came a week after officials conducted desk searches in the finance department. It is not clear what officials were looking for.
From the Archives: Richmond’s Old City Hall
05-31-1967 (cutline): City Hall is backdrop as crowed gathers at ground-breaking for its replacement.
Don Pennell
08-31-1979 (cutline): Peeling paint, fallen plaster are signs of deterioration at Old City Hall.
Masaki Okada
06-27-1967 (cutline): A bulldozer works today around a heavy vault, uncovered near Ninth and Broad Streets during the excavation for the new City Hall. The present City Hall is in the background, across the intersection of 10th and Broad Streets. The vault is at the site of the former headquarters of Home Beneficial Life Insurance Co., which moved in 1950 to the 3900 block W. Broad St. The building later housed the city Department of Public Utlities. Other buildings in the block housed a different office of Home Beneficial, now located a block west; a fire station, and Richmond Motor Co., now at 4600 W. Broad St. The Life Insurance Company of Virginia is in the background.
Amir Pishdad
08-13-1970 (cutline): Richmond’s old City Hall just wasn’t built for the modern age symbolized by the aircraft which seems about to hit it, so the new marble facade at left is rising to replace it. The slick newcomer is due for completion in mid-1971, but fate of its venerable granite neighbor across Broad Street is still, like the jet, up in the air.
Bob Brown
01-15-1961 (cutline): Basins were once installed in City Hall Offices. Workers who tended fires had to wash their hands.
Times-Dispatch
10-28-1984 (cutline): Richmond’s Old City Hall was praised, criticized at national conference.
Don Pennell
02-08-1959: Old City Hall
Staff photo
05-04-1950 (cutline): Part of overflow crowd that attended housing project hearing at Richmond City Hall.
Staff photo
03-14-1952 (cutline): Richmond’s City Hall shows its age–Coffman (left), Smorto point to latest crack in base.
Staff photo
10-14-1968: Repairs at Old City Hall building.
Bill Lane
10-06-1989: Old City Hall from above
Bob Brown
10-06-1989: Old City Hall
Bob Brown
12-15-1975 (cutline) Ornate staircase is one of many ‘treasures’ in Old City Hall. Despite National Historic Landmark designation, future is cloudy.
Bob Brown
05-31-1967 (cutline): Mayor Crowe, Vice Mayor Mundle, City Manager Edwards and School Board Chairman Calkins crossing Broad St. with shovels over their shoulders, toward site of new City Hall. Each will have a shovel–two chrome-plated, plus two old ones (with the dirt of ’88 still on them), used in the groundbreaking for present City Hall.
Staff photo
06-24-1983: Old City Hall
Don Long
01-15-1961 (cutline): Twisting stairway leads to City Hall tower. Sightseers haven’t climbed them for years.
Amir Pishdad
01-13-1984: Workers in close ducts at Old City Hall.
Don Pennell
02-05-1984: Old City Hall
Lindy Keast Rodman