Monday, January 16, 2012

SO MANY THINGS ARE NONE OF OUR BUSINESS

Since we returned to these pages one of the things about JFNA's constant lack of accountability and "new culture" that has concerned us the most has been that only a small group of "leaders" has been made privy to matters that should be the concern of all of us. Consider,  if you will, litigation against the organization.

As it turns out, in September 2010, Rhea Attias, once a respected professional who rose to the position of "Managing Director" of JFNA's Network of close to 400 non-federated communities constituting the Network of Independent Communities, filed a multi-count Complaint against JFNA in Federal Court in New York arising out of her 2009 termination. Among Attias' allegations were: "...(she was) paid lower wages and benefits than similarly situated male employees who performed the same job functions under similar working conditions;" additional discriminatory actions including age and sex; violation of agreed-upon pension benefits; and interfering with her job prospects "...by spreading false and misleading information...and by otherwise disparaging her accomplishments, abilities and employment history."

And, of course, JFNA's lawyers have filed what is basically a blanket denial to all of the allegations. Curiously, they have filed a motion to assure that a list of JFNA's employees' salaries be sealed, denying access to that info of which they want no one to know. This is JFNA's focus of course.

The more important fact is not that a lawsuit claiming sex and age discrimination has been filed. That can happen. The bottom line question is: have you ever heard anything about this lawsuit? Has there been any disclosure to the Board, to the federations, to JFNA's auditors? Are there other pending lawsuits against JFNA, its employees and officers? Or is this kind of thing none of our business...like so much else at JFNA. 

This entire Post -- none of your business, of course.

Rwexler  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you kidding? It's none of your business. It's not the executive committee's business either.

At the coming board meeting in Orlando, they were going to change the name of the organization to: Manning-Silverman, Inc. but on careful review it is now being changed to "Kathy's World, Inc."

Michael Gelman and Jerry Silverman are the newly named Maitre D's of Kathy's World (f/k/a NewCo, UJC, and JFNA).

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed this blog and the comment posted by anonymous. Meglamania at it's best, or should that be it's worst? Having been well aquainted with both Rhea and her replacement, I still scratch my head as to why she was fired and he was retained? This of course all took place before Jerry Silverman joined the organization. I recall he promised to try to heal things with Rhea, guess that was just an empty promise. I wish it hadn't been for Rhea's sake.