By: Max Nesterak
ST. PAUL, Minn (Minnesota Reformer) – Former Minnesota Nurses Association Executive Director Karlton Scott filed a lawsuit against the union and its first vice president, alleging he was wrongfully terminated after a rival for the executive director job and his supporters targeted Scott with a racist rumor campaign falsely accusing him of sexual impropriety.
Scott was forced out a year ago, less than a week after a reform-minded majority took over the union’s board of directors and held an emergency meeting to replace him with Elaina Hane, who in turn fired four other union managers including the only other non-white senior managers.
Scott had only been at the helm of the union for a year, although he had spent years at the union, rising from an organizer in 2013 to director of organizing in 2019. He was the first Black executive director of the union and had a “stellar, unblemished record of exceptional achievement,” according to his lawsuit, filed in state court last month.
The union, which represents some 22,000 nurses, filed its response to the lawsuit on Tuesday, denying wrongdoing. A spokeswoman for the union declined to comment further because it’s a personnel issue.
Around the time he was appointed executive director in November 2022, then-director of field operations Phil Denniston filed a complaint against Scott alleging he had engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with multiple female union members during his previous time at the union. Scott says the complaint was filed after he was appointed, while the union, in its response to the lawsuit, says it was filed before.
None of the women with whom he was alleged to have acted inappropriately filed complaints with the union, and Scott’s lawsuit says an independent investigator reviewed the complaint and found no evidence to support the allegations. The union denied Scott’s assertion in its response filed in court, although the board didn’t take any action after receiving the investigation.
After the investigation, Scott’s lawsuit says Denniston “continued to make false and racially motivated statements” about him. So did Denniston’s allies in the reform group, including Kelley Anaas and Shiori Konda-Muhammad, who wanted Denniston to be hired as executive director instead of Scott. Anaas and Denniston are white; Konda-Muhammad is Asian.
Scott fired Denniston in February 2023, and the union sent cease and desist letters to Anaas and Konda-Muhammad, but they continued to make “false and racially motivated statements,” according to the lawsuit.
The union then suspended Anaas’ membership, making her ineligible to run for a position on the board as first vice president.
Konda-Muhammad was then elected first vice president along with her allies, and they reinstated Anaas after assuming control of the board in January 2024 and firing Scott. Konda-Muhammad is named as a defendant in the lawsuit along with the union.
Scott’s termination during a closed door emergency meeting and now his lawsuit alleging racial discrimination could undermine the reform majority’s promise to focus on racial justice and increase transparency.
At the time of Scott’s firing, a person associated with the union said it smacked of hypocrisy and called the shake-up a “s*** show.”
The internal strife comes as the union begins negotiations on its biggest contracts with the state’s largest health systems. Two years ago, some 15,000 Minnesota Nurses Association members walked off the job in what was then the largest private sector nurses strike in U.S. history, yielding double-digit wage increases.
But that victory was followed by two years of bruising defeats at the state Capitol, when the union’s agenda was bigfooted by Mayo Clinic and other hospitals. The union has also lost hundreds of members in recent years to decertification campaigns supported by the National Right to Work Foundation, with the most recent defeat coming just this week at Mayo Clinic’s Fairmont Medical Center.
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