Report: AFSCME protected ‘seemingly untouchable’ employee from termination, despite history of violence and sexual harassment

A Chicago city worker terminated in 2017 exhibited a pattern of serious misconduct spanning nearly 20 years. But Illinois’ largest public sector union won him back his job.

If the findings from a recent investigation are any indication, the protection of one worker appears to trump the protection of others at one Chicago city agency.

In an investigative report released April 3 by government watchdog group Project Six, serial misconduct from a Chicago Department of Water Management, or DWM, employee went virtually unabated for nearly two decades. City records included in the report detail DWM water chemist Anthony Nguyen’s history of violence, harassment and bigotry, which was met with only minor penalties from department officials.

Nguyen was terminated from his post in 2017, shortly following a controversy in which it was uncovered by the city of Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General that DWM management officials exchanged a series of overtly racist and sexist emails. However, Nguyen returned to work after the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 successfully petitioned for his reinstatement.

AFSCME is the largest government-worker union in the state, representing approximately 75,000 workers across Illinois.

The city’s Law Department has denied that the employee’s initial discharge was the consequence of the email controversy. But Project Six’s findings suggest the email scandal failed to convey the full extent of DWM’s problems.

History of abuse

Reports of Nguyen’s documented harassment stem back several years. Between 1998-2017, at least 10 formal punishments had been issued to Nguyen in response to a range of serious violations, according to the investigation.

Frequent disturbances involved Nguyen “yelling and screaming at African American employees, sharpening knife-like items in front of employees, threats, and on more than one occasion even physically assaulting others,” according to Project Six’s investigation.

But disciplinary actions imposed by the agency routinely failed to match the degree of Nguyen’s misconduct. The investigation reveals Nguyen received a seven-day discharge for “verbal abuse” and “explosive behavior” in 2000, for example, while a 1999 sexual harassment charge elicited a suspension lasting a mere five days.

Only on two occasions, the investigation notes, did a suspension issued to Nguyen exceed 10 days, despite at least four “incidents that included substantiated claims of workplace violence.”

But no number of recorded violations sufficed to sink Nguyen’s above-average annual performance review scores. Project Six notes that Nguyen never received lower than 83 on a scale that awards merit-based pay raises to those who exceed a score of 70.

Failure of leadership

Nguyen’s ongoing harassment of other DWM employees also included numerous examples of racial intimidation, according to the investigation. One form of intimidation came in the form of leaving a copy of “Mein Kampf” at the workspaces of African-American coworkers. This spurred an employee to file a complaint with the Illinois Labor Relations Board.

Project Six notes that a DWM spokesperson did not answer questions regarding whether DWM knew about the complaint.

And whereas certain calls were never properly answered by upper-management, other transgressions simply went unreported. Uncertainty that employees’ complaints would be taken seriously – or worse, that they’d be used against the complainant – made some employees conclude the risk of alienation outweighed the probability of discipline.

In one instance, Nguyen allegedly urinated in front of a female co-worker. Another source within DWM anonymously told Project Six that “Nguyen urinated in a coffee cup, placed the cup in an oven to dry it out, and then replaced the cup on an African American employee’s desk so they would drink from it.” Nguyen’s behavior in both cases went unreported, with sources citing fear of retribution for speaking up.

Employee concerns over inaction and retribution proved valid. One African-American employee, who’d filed complaints involving being victimized by Nguyen, was nevertheless assigned a seat beside him. The complainant himself, however, was disciplined for changing seats, despite a supervisor sharing the employee’s concern in an internal letter addressed to another official, according to the report.

One DWM employee, the Project Six report highlighted, opted to retire early, specifically citing Nguyen’s abusive treatment.

AFSCME protection

While supervisors didn’t ignore all of Nguyen’s transgressions, discipline remained consistently mild enough for Nguyen to resume his pattern of torment – until he was terminated by the city in the wake of the 2017 email scandal.

That same year, however, AFSCME intervened as an arbitrator on Nguyen’s behalf, appealing the employee’s termination. The report explains that the arbiter ultimately sided with AFSCME, mandating that the discharge be reduced to a 30-day unpaid suspension, after which he’d be “immediately” reinstated to his former post, and moreover reimbursed “for his losses resulting from the discharge.”

But AFSCME’s ability to, and interest in, rescuing an employee such as Nguyen from termination indicates a broader dysfunction that permeates well beyond Chicago’s water department.

The disproportionate power government-worker unions wield in Illinois has given way to endemic dysfunction in Illinois – all at the expense of taxpayers. But AFSCME’s protection of Nguyen offers a reminder that the outsized influence they hold comes also at the peril of other government workers.