‘Mistreated, Intimidated and Underpaid’: City Council Workers Rebel

They say they have been habitually mistreated and intimidated, and have few meaningful ways to make their complaints heard without fear of reprisal.

They say they are trapped by a New York City Council that has fostered an environment where misconduct, harassment and abuse are tolerated, saying that the last straw was the Council’s decision this week not to expel Councilman Andy King, despite findings that he had intimidated his staff and misused city resources.

Now, in an open letter to the Council and its speaker, Corey Johnson, more than 100 current and former employees are calling for sweeping changes that better protect the well-being and safety of those who work for the legislative body.

“Over the years, certain council members have regularly mistreated, intimidated and underpaid staff, while members are given near-unlimited discretion over the treatment of their staff,” the letter says. “We have few avenues to meaningfully launch complaints without fear of retaliation or intimidation.”

The letter, which was posted on Medium on Friday, requests that the Council allow an independent authority to investigate claims of misconduct against its members; create clear guidelines on punishment for violating the rules; and usher in changes to help employees feel they can report issues of harassment.

“It’s a political body trying to regulate itself,” said one employee, who has worked for a Brooklyn council member for more than two years. “It does not take a genius to realize that is not functional.”

The letter was not signed by the current and former staff members; they requested anonymity for fear of workplace retaliation.

But one worker involved in the letter, Chloe Rivera, a policy analyst, said that the failed vote to oust Mr. King was a vivid illustration of how improper behavior was tolerated.

“It was a reminder that no one is looking out for us and that council members are held to a different standard,” said Ms. Rivera, who recently came forward as the woman who filed a sexual harassment complaint against Mr. King last year.

“If anything, as elected officials, the standard should be higher,” she added.

Mr. King, a Bronx Democrat, was suspended for 30 days — one of the harshest punishments in the history of the Council. Mr. Johnson hired a respected outside former federal prosecutor, Carrie H. Cohen, to help compile a 48-page report that detailed Mr. King’s indiscretions.

Mr. King, who had previously been punished by the City Council after a substantiated complaint of sexual harassment, retaliated against staff members who cooperated with the investigation, sending them home without pay and eventually trying to fire two employees.

The report also found that Mr. King’s actions were part of a larger pattern of abuse endured by his staff members that included threats of violence; making them answer to and do work for his wife, a union executive; and ordering them to drive him around in their personal cars without recompense. Mr. King also used Council funds to plan a retreat in the Virgin Islands at the same time as the wedding of his wife’s daughter, the report found.

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, a Queens Democrat, had said the punishment that the ethics committee recommended was not enough and introduced a resolution to expel Mr. King, but only 11 of his colleagues voted in favor of it.

“The behavior exhibited by Council member King is harmful and destructive to staff and morale, and calls for nothing less than complete expulsion from this body,” the employees’ letter said. “Thus, we call for the speaker and the members of the New York City Council to do what they should have done the first time this issue came to the Council floor: remove Council member King from this body.”

Mr. King has denied the charges in the report and has filed a lawsuit challenging the punishment, claiming that his rights to due process were violated.

But the behavior by Mr. King is just one example of a wider pattern of how City Council workers are sometimes treated, they say. Ms. Rivera, who still had to encounter Mr. King after filing the sexual harassment complaint against him, said she felt intimidated. Colleagues are regularly cursed at or have their intelligence demeaned by council members, another worker said.

And many say they feel as though there is no point in filing a complaint.

“I’ve worked in stressful situations but this was a level of stress where I felt expendable and I was treated as such,” said a former employee who worked for a Brooklyn council member. “I felt like I could be replaced at the drop of a hat.”

Ms. Rivera said she had counseled many of her colleagues who came to her after she went public about the harassment she faced.

“There are staffers who have been harassed and who have not come forward,” she said, “because they don’t think there will be real consequences and they will be vulnerable to retaliation.”

Mr. Johnson has said that the City Council takes complaints from its staff seriously. As part of the resolution imposing sanctions on Mr. King, the employees who were relieved from his office will have their employment with the city restored.

“Behavior that was once laughed off as locker-room talk or inevitable in the rough and tumble world of politics has been publicly condemned and swiftly sanctioned by this body,” said Jennifer Fermino, a spokeswoman for Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson has dealt with multiple episodes of bad behavior during his tenure as speaker.

Homophobic remarks by Councilman Rubén Díaz Sr. of the Bronx prompted the elimination of a committee he led. Councilman Barry Grodenchik of Queens resigned from a committee leadership position after acknowledging that he had sexually harassed a staff member. And Councilman Kalman Yeger of Brooklyn lost a committee seat after saying that “Palestine does not exist.”

In May, the council hired Redwood Enterprise to review its policies related to sexual harassment. The firm was previously hired by the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to develop guidelines for addressing issues of discrimination and sexual misconduct.

The council also revised its policies to require supervisors to report allegations of harassment or discrimination, and officials said they would be open to reviewing mandatory punishment guidelines for some offenses.

Mr. Van Bramer said that he was proud the workers were “speaking truth to power,” and that the legislative body must now act.

“Many of us started as activists, so we’ve got to be open to this and not be defensive,” said Mr. Van Bramer, who said the Council had already taken a powerful step by hiring an outside counsel to investigate allegations made against its members. “If we don’t, then we’re hypocrites.”