NYT: A Fighter Now Fights for Herself

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/13polsnj.html?_r=1&ref=nyregionspecial2&oref=slogin

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: July 13, 2008

TRENTON

AFTER decades of agitating on behalf of everyone from Nicaraguan farm workers to New Jersey caseworkers, shop stewards to political power brokers, Carla Katz, the self-appointed catalyst of the state’s labor movement, now finds herself campaigning to save yet another job.

Her own.

Ms. Katz is nominally the president of one of the state’s largest public employees unions, Communications Workers of America Local 1034, but has played myriad roles in New Jersey political life: bare-knuckle negotiator, shrewd lobbyist and gone-but-not-forgotten former girlfriend of Gov. Jon Corzine, causing him no end of tabloid embarrassment.

Within the union hierarchy, Ms. Katz is often regarded as a maverick who operates by her own set of rules. That headstrong approach led leaders at C.W.A. national headquarters to strip her of her powers last week and change the locks on her office door, after charging that Ms. Katz had improperly used the local’s money to cover expenses from her campaign for district vice president and to make unauthorized campaign donations to Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark. Ms. Katz still holds the title of president, but the union is scheduled to hold a hearing on the matter July 22.

Ms. Katz, 49, scoffs at the charges against her, and accuses the union leadership of fabricating allegations to retaliate because she publicly lobbied against their proposed contract settlement during the most recent round of negotiations. Not surprisingly, Ms. Katz is responding to the charges by doing what she has always done: fighting.

“This is a travesty,” she said a few days ago, after leafleting state workers in Trenton and Burlington County, then spending the afternoon preparing court papers to ask for a temporary restraining order. “They’re trying to take control of our local. With no due process. No chance to respond to the charges. Nothing.”

FULL story at link.