USDA COALITION OF MINORITY EMPLOYEES

“THE COALITION”

                     

 

                                               

 

 

 

 

Vernon Parker                                                                                                                       11 January 2006

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights

USDA Office of Civil Rights

Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building; Room 240-W

12th and Constitution Avenue

Washington, DC  20250

 

Assistant Secretary Vernon Parker:

 

This letter replaces the draft email sent to you on January 10, 2006.

 

Thank you for scheduling a meeting on January 24, 2006, with you, your staff, the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees representatives and a representative(s) of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).   This meeting is in response to Coalition's concerns and issues addressed in a letter to Secretary Mike Johanns, dated May 4 and June 8, 2005, and a letter dated December 20, 2005, from Sadhna True, Director, USDA Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on your behalf.

 

We have carefully read your letter dated August 31, 2005, sharing your "progress in implementing the initiatives we established to improve the civil rights program and to demonstrate our commitment to equal opportunity," and we understand your email, dated Tuesday, October 25, 2005, where you stated, "My staff and I are unable to meet with you at the time requested." The Coalition is now better prepared to discuss our many issues and concerns, that we have shared with Secretary Johanns via letters and emails and those presented to EEOC. Therefore, we are expecting that at least (95%) of the meeting will be spent focusing on our issues and concerns. It is expected that at least ten persons will attend the meeting.  Mr. Leroy Warren, Chairman, NAACP, Federal Sector Task Force, will attend, also.  I recommend that all participants set aside a full day for this meeting.

 

The Coalition is requesting that the Department pickup travel (lodging and per diem) for Coalition Delegation participants.  Their attendance will ensure a better result(s)/solution(s) that will get to the "root causes" of discrimination and a host of other abuses at USDA nationwide.  Especially, we need to address the Animal Plant Health and Inspection Service (APHIS) in Ames, Iowa, and the Forest Service (FS), Region 5, California.

 

The policy issues and concerns we will address include some of the following:

 

·         Conflict of interest in and outside the USDA OCR;

·         Complaint administration and processing USDA wide (case backlog, case dismissals, final agency decisions, cases held in abeyance, reporting of complaint data, etc.);  

·         Discrimination and abusive conditions in the USDA OCR;

·         Accountability department-wide (USDA OCR, Agency civil rights, USDA Human Resources, etc.)…there is an extremely poor record of holding discriminating and abusive USDA officials accountable;

·         Poor administration and processing of reprisal, hostile work environment, and whistleblower complaints;

·         An historically high number of class actions filed with poor resolution efforts under the Bush Administration (most cases involving women);

·         Misinformation program by the USDA OCR (release of false civil rights/No FEAR information and data); 

·         Little to no effort to oversee the USDA agency civil rights process and little done to get to the root causes of USDA's discrimination and other abuses;


·         Need for continued expansion of USDA diversity recruitment initiative (California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona, CA, MOU and Iowa State University, Ames, IA);

·         Discuss implementation of REAP;

·         The USDA Office of General Counsel (OGC) and outside attorneys, hired by USDA are allowed to control the civil rights process....preventing ADR/Early Resolution of individual and class action complaints.  The so- called "firewall" between the OCR and OGC remains a pipe dream. 

 

In preparation for the meeting on 24 January 2006, I would appreciate your a response to our request for funding to me by Friday, January 13, 2006.  Also, in preparation for the January 24, 2006 meeting, we would appreciate you forwarding the below listed information to me via FedEx no later than January 20, 2006, to 4600 Roosevelt Avenue, Pennsauken, NJ 08109:

 

·         USDA response (corrective actions) to the EEOC onsite report, dated June 3-7, 2003;

·         Data/Number of complaints filed by employees in the USDA OCR during the years, FY 03, FY 04 and FY 05;

·         Evaluations, surveys and/or performance measures for program improvements of (a) Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Fellowship Scholarship and Coop Program (Ms. Maria Goldberg); and (b) 1890's recruitment programs (Carl Butler, OCR);

·         FY 05 "No Fear Report" to include all submissions to date;

·         List of all class actions filed in the past 10 years (i.e., agencies covered, class group, date filed, current status); and,

·         Monthly reports generated by the OCR “i Complaints Civil Rights Tracking and Reporting System” for January 2005-January 2006.

 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Please feel free to contact me at (856) 910- 2399.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Lawrence C. Lucas

President

USDA Coalition of Minority of Employees

 

Cc:  Mike Johanns, Secretary

       Chuck Connors, Deputy Secretary

       Dale Moore, Chief of Staff,

       Annabelle Romero, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights

       Sadhna True, Director, Office of Civil Rights,

       Carlton Hadden, Director EEOC, Office of Federal Operations

       Leroy Warren, Chairman, NAACP Federal Sector Task Force

       Coalition Delegation