Standing up for workers’ rights is what OPSEU does every day for its 130,000 union members, defending them against intimidation or retaliation by employers.

But these days, one of Ontario’s biggest unions stands accused of harassment and retaliation by its own unionized employees — amid terminations, suspensions, investigationsand mutual recriminations at its head office.

After a bitter round of contract negotiations between union management and union workers at OPSEU, a virtual civil war has broken out at headquarters — pitting unionists against unionists. Interviews with both sides reveal an atmosphere of mistrust by management and fear of firings among union staff.

The storied brand of OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) could be tarnished by the conflict with its own staff labour movement, the Ontario Public Service Staff Union (OPSSU), amid allegations of union bashing by their own union.

As fate would have it, the internecine turmoil culminated just as workers were preparing to mark the annual rite of union solidarity on Labour Day.

According to OPSSU, four staff have been terminated, five workers suspended, and a total of 22 staff accused by OPSEU management of unauthorized strike action after they participated in a so-called “solidarity walk” during their coffee break, rallying around an embattled worker before a meeting where supervisors suspended her. OPSSU says it has filed an Unfair Labour Practice Complaint.

The latest conflict takes place against a backdrop of concerns about allegations of sexual harassment at headquarters first reported by the Toronto Star. At its April convention, OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas had to defend his handling of complaints from headquarters staff.

Smokey refused comment in a brief telephone interview Friday, but later emailed a statement that he could not comment on internal union matters.

“I often get asked to comment on public issues in my role as a union leader, but I seldom get asked to comment as an employer. As you’ve learned, I have recently had to take disciplinary action against a few of my staff out of the 350 or so who work for us. Obviously I can’t comment on the particulars of individual cases, which are confidential; all I can say is that the situations involved were significant. I am accountable to 130,000 dues-paying members — I can’t ignore incidents or situations that interfere with our union’s ability to represent those members effectively.”

But Pati Habermann, president of the staff union (OPSSU) says her members face a “toxic work environment” and “a volcano” that leaves them “terrified to come to work in the morning.”

She has reached out to the OPSEU leadership for a ceasefire in the ongoing civil war: “I’m hoping Smokey is going to give me a call.”

She added: “We want people to know what’s going on.”

OPSSU staff perform a wide range of organizational duties for OPSEU, such as labour education campaigns, communications and administration at the sprawling public sector union whose membership includes civil servants and hospital workers, jail guards and college professors.

What makes the tit-for-tat actions unusual is that Smokey seems to be coming down hard against his fellow unionists at OPSSU for protest tactics not dramatically different from what his team might deploy against employers during routine labour disputes. In return, embattled frontline staff accuse him of classic union-busting tactics to make workers feel vulnerable.

It is an allegation echoed by other elected OPSEU leaders watching from a distance, who are increasingly worried about how top brass at headquarters are handling this and other serious staff matters.

“If our employers were doing this we would call it union-busting,” said Kevin MacKay, vice-president of OPSEU Local 240 at Mohawk College, who stressed he was speaking on behalf of other elected union leaders.

“Everyone I talk to who has known about this, they’re not okay with what’s going on. We want to see that stopped, we want to see retaliation against OPSSU stopped,” MacKay told me.

“It sends a horrible message to our employers. These are tactics that we would just decry in the strongest terms if they were happening in our workplaces, I think rightly so. It’s dirty pool, right? And so we can’t let this stand as union members.”

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MacKay and other unionized college professors were themselves the targets of head office wrath earlier this year when they raised concerns about the work environment at headquarters. A formal libel notice from top managers at OPSEU accused MacKay and others of defamation for raising concerns about “an overall climate and toxic culture at OPSEU that allowed an employee to engage in systemic sexual harassment for years and for their failure to ensure a harassment-free workplace.”

Concerns about protecting workers from sexual harassment and other workplace concerns were a factor in contract negotiations this summer between OPSEU and its staff union. Workers rejected a tentative deal and said they wanted specific language protecting them: “The employer (OPSEU) was not willing to agree to this, however from the union’s (OPSSU) perspective, workers have a right to a psychologically safe work environment,” according to a bulletin to members issued last month by OPSSU.

The two sides reached a new deal last month, which was ratified by members. But staff who had hoped to put the recent months of turmoil behind them are braced for a continuing crackdown from their own union as they try to do their day jobs defending the rights of the 130,000 OPSEU members across Ontario.