In 2007, Local 171 Stewards found out that Vertein was making personal long distance calls on the University’s phone, in clear violation of UW policy. We were not surprised to see that Vertein was doing this, but we were surprised to find that Vertein’s office phones was registered to two LTE’s, both men of color. This was apparently a crude effort to hide the fact that Vertein was stealing long distance service from his employer.
Human Resources staff has told Local 171 Stewards that Vertein was made to pay for the calls. Tom Garcia of the Memorial Union Human Resources office has claimed that Vertein had nothing to do with changing the registration if these phones to the two LTE’s, the Department of Information Technology registered the phones to these two workers. We find it hard to believe too.
With the help of progressive students, Local 171 has compelled the University to finally address the abuse of LTE’s on campus. Plans are to convert around 500 LTE’s to classified, Union represented positions over the next six years. This situation illustrates the abuse that LTE’s suffer at the UW. Vertein clearly picked two of the most vulnerable workers in the kitchen when he tried to evade the consequences of his theft of phone service. With no Union to protect them, these LTE’s could not speak out if they found out Vertein was using their identities
