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Ignacio protesters slam SUCAP over employment issues

Protesters gathered from Thursday outside the offices of Southern Ute Community Action Program in Ignacio, decrying the organization’s alleged unfair treatment toward Southern Utes.

Protesters waved placards Thursday outside the Southern Ute Community Action Program building in Ignacio, decrying what they characterized as the organization’s lack of transparency, cruelty to employees, poor management and betrayal of Southern Utes.

Judy Lansing, who held a sign saying, “Tribal culture + traditions disregarded” and “Southern Utes know what Southern Utes need,” said she had worked at SUCAP for 30 years before she was “wrongfully terminated” in May 2014 when a supervisor claimed she had failed to work required Saturdays, though he’d previously told her she didn’t have to work those Saturdays.

“I filed a grievance, and they didn’t even follow their own grievance policy. I feel like my civil rights are being violated,” she said.

SUCAP, which has an annual budget of more then $6 million, is one of the largest nonprofits in Southwest Colorado. It gets the bulk of its funding from government grants and the Southern Ute Tribe.

Protester Linda Mahlum said she worked under Lansing for eight years until she, too, was fired in May for not working on Saturdays that their SUCAP division head had exempted her from working. Mahlum said they’d been fighting “tooth and nail to get our jobs back.”

“It seems like SUCAP is a management empire, where the rank-and-file employees are abused and often fired,” she said.

Protester and former SUCAP employee Joe Poynter said, “The issue is that it doesn’t center around the community or Native American people or culture.”

He said many people at SUCAP were wonderful, “but a handful are vicious, incompetent and behaving poorly.” he said.

Across the street, inside the SUCAP building, SUCAP Executive Director Eileen Wasserbach denied that the organization has fired an outsized number of employees.

She said SUCAP, which has between 135 and 155 staff members, has had an “involuntary termination rate between 2 to 5 percent over the last four years.”

“From my perspective, there is a group of people, some of whom are former employees, who have some issues with SUCAP management. They very appropriately used the SUCAP employee grievance policy. But the result of that process did not meet their expectations. So I think they still feel like they need to complain,” she said.

She said she understood that the protesters were angry, and SUCAP investigated their allegations.

“I think some of the things that have come out of their complaints will make us a stronger organization. There’s that to be glad about,” she said.

cmcallister@ durangoherald.com



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