The Liberal Reich of Johnson County

by Mona Shaw

Former Johnson County employee Shanti Sellz is suing her former boss Josh Busard and members of the Board of Supervisors after she was fired following a complaint of assault.

Every “progressive” and “progressive entity” should be at her back, from every labor leader in the county to the Women’s Center to Iowa City Federation of Labor, to the Labor Center,  et al.  They won’t be. They will join the circle of wagons protecting the “progressive” members of the Board of Supervisors.  The Supervisors are carrying water for Busard. He’s one of their own. That’s what they do.

A few may give her support sub rosa while explaining some self-interested rationale for why they must stay neutral publicly. A few will question this with a member of the Board of Supervisors. Those few will nod and let it go when that Supervisor says, “Well, she had other problems, but I can’t talk about that.”

Co-workers friends who have been sympathetic and know she’s telling the truth will be terrified to be seen with her in public.  Some will deny their own abuse at Busard’s hand and be bullied into betraying her.

Shanti Sellz may not have known that worst place she could have taken her assault complaint was to Lora Shramek director of Johnson County Human Resources.  She guaranteed she would be fired that day. She was, no doubt, encouraged after her first meeting with Shramek.  That’s how it works.  She may not have seen Shramkek’s betrayal coming.  But it come, it did. A follow-up letter to Sellz from the county’s human resources department said that Busard and Sellz should “work through issues with the help of a counselor.”

This “solution” is essentially no different than expecting Brett Kavanaugh and Elizabeth Blasey Ford to work through their issues with a counselor. Anyone claiming to be a feminist should be horrified.

However, it’s not as if any Johnson County employee has a choice, including those protected by a union contract.  The County’s union contract doesn’t protect workplace abuse or assault.  A supervisor can treat a worker anyway they please, and the abuse cannot be grieved under the contract.

The County does have a provision for complaints of “bullying” outside the contract.  In my initial meeting with Shramek in which she was completely sympathetic, she told me the provision was created with my abuser, County Auditor Tom Slockett in mind because his abuse was so notorious. She told me Slockett had even abused her (Shramek) when she was nine months pregnant. She would later claim I was lying when I repeated that in a hearing.

This provision has never had a finding. It’s never even gone to a hearing. County Attorney Janet Lyness is very skilled at kicking out these complaints on a technicality until you’re worn down.

Not that the contract gives you that much cover. After my complaint of abuse, the retaliation was inhumane and brutal. I was the first employee in County history who ever had a finding in my favor for unfair discipline.  The facts were too clear to deny. One was for typing out “Iowa” instead of using the initial “IA” in a memo.  They denied one of my grievances of discipline also for a petty clerical error, that I found and corrected before my boss knew it.  A County employee, who was privy to this, told me later, “They had to give him one. They have to live with him.”

Sellz may not know that until I was on the bargaining committee in 2005, that the County contract didn’t even protect against unfair termination. If any worker was fired, they were fired. Period. They had no recourse.  It wasn’t until I threatened to go public that this changed.

I detest writing about Johnson County leadership, and since 2012 I seldom do. It causes me to relive painful memories. It always brings back my most painful memory in my own ordeal.

A close friend invited me for dinner. I would soon learn that she had been tasked to bully me into dropping my complaint. She was running for office, and she was protecting her affinity with the Democratic Party.  I kept making my case until she interrupted me.

“Has Slockett ever abused you?”

“Yes,” I told her.

She laughed. A long mocking laugh that seemed to never end. That laugh broke me in that moment. I hadn’t touched a bite of my dinner.  She didn’t notice. I said nothing more except I wanted to go home. The moment ended a 30-year friendship.

That laugh is indelibly imprinted in my own hippocampus. It hurt more than the unfair disciplines, more than being put in front of my supervisor for constant scrutiny, more than being warned by that supervisor of being disciplined if I didn’t keep my hands in full view at all times. I couldn’t reach in my purse for a Kleenex. It hurt more than being told I couldn’t go the restroom without that supervisor’s permission, or when, after asking permission, that supervisor would go into Slockett’s office for twenty minutes or more until I was finally allowed to leave. It hurt more than the day I returned from lunch and found my file of evidence for my complaint had been erased from my computer. I filed a FOIA request to get the files back—they were public files.  I was told there would be a fee of $2500 to get them. An ITS worker told me it would take him 20 minutes top to retrieve them. It hurt more than when I was characterized as “unstable” because the abuse led to major clinical depression and two hospitalizations for suicidal ideation.

It took eight years, but I prevailed. Sort of. After nearly a decade of doggedly putting out my documentation and with the anonymous confirmation of others, the electorate of Johnson County chose to remove Slockett from office in the 2012 election. 

It cost me more than $600,000 in lost wages and benefits, rendered me permanently unemployable and placed me in poverty for life. Even so, I’d do it again.

I wasn’t fired by the way.  I resigned when Slockett began issuing formal discipline to those caught talking to me. After Travis Weipert won the election, I emailed the Board of Supervisors and asked for them to meet with me about getting my job back. I mentioned the damages I had incurred.  I heard nothing for a month. Finally, Janelle Rettig phoned me and told me no meeting would happen. She said some members were bitter about how I’d damaged the reputation of the party and didn’t want to see me in the building ever again.

When I said I would forgo the job and damages if the Board would work with me to institute protections so that no employee would ever have to go through this again, Janelle told me to take it up with the Iowa legislature.

I thought about suing, but not long.  You only get money from litigation at best.  You don’t get justice.  You also get an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement).  I knew I wouldn’t be able to shut up for any amount of cash.  It remains satisfying to learn that my soul really isn’t for sale.

If there is any justice in Johnson County, Shanti Sellz will prevail.  If there’s any justice, feminists and labor leaders will stand publicly and proudly with her.  They all know, or they should know the Board of Supervisors didn’t have to fire her.  They have dozens of employees who remained in their jobs who didn’t file for FLMA until after they’d exhausted their sick leave. Even if she technically didn’t meet the requirements of the Family Leave Act, and that’s a big “if, the spirit of that provision was clearly violated. According to their own documentation, Shanti Sellz was a good employee.  That should have led them to help her. There was nothing that prevented them doing that.  They just didn’t.

One of the last things Janelle Rettig said to me was, “Look, I work with cowards, but I have to work with them.”

Shanti Sellz didn’t put me up to writing this. She doesn’t know that I’m writing this.

I just know that it takes uncommon courage to go up against this Reich.  Shanti Sellz has shown that courage. Does anyone in the County have the courage to stand with her?

In the immortal words of Florence Reece, “Which side are you on?”