Charles Ensley, who led the union representing New York City social workers for 26 years and was a forceful critic of union corruption, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 69. þþThe cause was lung cancer, his wife, Annette, said. þþAs president of Social Service Employees Union Local 371, which represents 15,000 social workers, Mr. Ensley was independent, outspoken and often irascible, clashing with other union leaders as well as mayors of both major parties. þþHe ran unsuccessfully in 2003 and 2007 to become executive director of District Council 37, the umbrella group representing 125,000 New York City municipal workers, the nation’s largest union of municipal employees. The council’s delegate assembly elected his opponent, Lillian Roberts, over him, partly because he had alienated some delegates by repeatedly denouncing a culture of corruption among some of the union’s leaders. þþWhen 20 officials from District Council 37 were convicted of either embezzlement or vote fraud in the late 1990s, Mr. Ensley helped lead efforts to right the embattled district council. The presidents of the council’s largest two locals were convicted of stealing more than $1 million each. þþ“I’m very proud I wasn’t a team player,” Mr. Ensley said in 2003. “If I had been a team player, I probably would have been in jail with the rest of them.” þþWhen council officials announced in 1996 that the rank and file had ratified a five-year contract that included a two-year pay freeze, Mr. Ensley was the first official to complain to the parent union in Washington, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, that he suspected vote fraud. The parent union dismissed his concerns, but four years later the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, won convictions of several council officials for widespread vote fraud. þþCharles Stephen Ensley was born on May 27, 1941, in Birmingham, Ala. Family members said he learned to stand up for the rights of the downtrodden when his father, who worked at The Birmingham News, fought for equal pay for the newspaper’s black employees. þþMr. Ensley graduated from Howard University in 1962, having majored in political science. þþHe married in 1964 and moved to Brooklyn, where he became a caseworker for the Bureau of Child Welfare, working in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section. The couple later moved to Manhattan. Besides his wife, he is survived by his sister, Barbara Jean Ensley of Manhattan. þþIn 1982, he won the presidency of Local 371 with 70 percent of the vote, later bringing unity to its historically fractious membership. þþIn 1993, he clashed with Mayor David N. Dinkins and his commissioner of human resources, Barbara Sabol, when she sought to bypass the civil service promotion list. Mr. Ensley said she had called it “too male and too white.” Even though most of his local’s members were black, Hispanic and female, Mr. Ensley objected, saying promotions should be based on “merit and fitness.” þþHe later battled with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani over his push for a two-year wage freeze and for replacing annual raises with merit-based increases. þþIn recent years Mr. Ensley championed greater union democracy. þþ“We’re the only major union in the city that doesn’t have direct elections,” he said in 2005. “It’s just an embarrassment. One of the best ways to re-energize labor is to have the rank and file more involved in day-to-day operations, and direct elections will certainly assure that.” þ
Source: NY Times
