Union President Accused of Quashing School Aide's Bid

A dissident member of a school employees’ union local is accusing the local’s president, one of the most powerful union leaders in New York, of using that power to suppress her opposition.

The dissident, Anthony Ferina, a cafeteria monitor at Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, wanted to run for the office of chairman of the local’s chapter of 14,000 school aides.

But he says he ran into a roadblock set up by Veronica Montgomery-Costa, the president of Local 372, which represents 27,000 school cafeteria workers, hall monitors and cafeteria monitors.

Ms. Montgomery-Costa also heads the executive board of District Council 37, an umbrella group of 56 New York City union locals — including Local 372 — that represent 121,000 municipal workers.

Eleven days before the election, Mr. Ferina said yesterday, the union leadership told him that he had been disqualified because the woman who had nominated him was not a union member. In a letter to Mr. Ferina, the head of the local’s election committee wrote that she had “failed to submit a completed membership application.”