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"Show me the proof"
Bellevue ACM Marion Fusco gets job and back pay back

January 2008

It took a little more than a year for Marion Fusco to get her job back. In October 2005 she was accused of stealing three days time, two of them in 2004 and one in January 2005. In 16 years at Bellevue she had a perfect record and her evaluations were “outstanding,” including the evaluation after the accusations were made.

What did she do wrong? Nothing. Sometimes there are personality clashes that go too far. That’s probably what happened here. The person who brought the charges was not the person who signed her time sheets. The doctor who signed Fusco’s time sheets wrote three letters to Labor Relations that said she saw no inconsistencies with Fusco’s attendance and her time sheets. The letters were ignored. At her step 3 hearing, Fusco said “when I introduced her as a witness they sat with their mouths open as if they were wondering what they were doing there.”

Even though Fusco had documentation for one of the three days, and even with her witness, Labor Relations went ahead with the termination. “They had no proof that I had stolen those days. ‘Show me,’ I said, ‘the proof.’ They couldn’t.” She collected unemployment insurance and then got a job at New York Hospital, all the time waiting to go back to Bellevue. “I went to work at Bellevue to retire from Bellevue,” she said. It was where she wanted to be.

“We appealed the termination,” said staff rep Harlan Reid. “We asked them if they really wanted to go to arbitration with this.” The answer was no. The agreement reached was that Fusco would get her back pay less her earnings and unemployment insurance and “the important thing is that she got her job back,” said Reid. She also got her title and the newly negotiated raise.

Fusco had planned to run for shop steward when her troubles began. She is going to run for the next opening. “People who get screwed by management need someone like me to stand up for them,” she said.

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