9/25/2002 5:00:00 PM PERRY / Dems, can you spare a dime?
BRIAN PERRY
Reasonably Right
We live in a time when politicians call for corporate responsibility and their opponents attempt to link them to powerful and politically active companies: guilt by association. Some will say that if workers and employees can’t trust their employer, and can’t trust their elected officials to protect them, then their rights have no safeguards.
WorldCom isn’t the only corporation in Mississippi who has overstated their current financial standing by hiding debt. This corporation has not hidden billions of dollars, but it is much more politically connected than WorldCom. This corporation is the Mississippi Democratic Party Corporation.
Perhaps “hiding debt” should better be phrased “ignoring debt,” the Mississippi Dems contest this debt. After all, this is the Mississippi Democratic Party, why should it have to pay an employee? The debt I write of is the salary and expenses from one of their past executive directors whom they never completely paid and for six years have attempted to sweep under the rug of judicial delay.
Alice Skelton served as executive director of the Mississippi Democratic Party from February 1995 until November of 1996. During that time she had three contracts, each signed by then Democratic Chairman Johnnie Walls, an attorney and state Senator from Greenville. One of those contracts was paid in full. Skelton has copies of the other two, waiting still for the balance.
It really is a simple case. Skelton was hired to do a job by the Mississippi Democratic Party. She did it. They didn’t pay her. This isn’t a matter of wrongful termination; Skelton does not contest their right to fire her. This is about being paid what she was promised for the job she did. Very simple, very clear, it could almost be a principle in the Democratic Party Platform. In fact, if you visit their web page at www.msdemocrats.net you will see that their second of four principles of belief is, “That every worker is due fair pay for honest labor and a secure retirement when the work is done.”
When it became apparent that she would not be paid, Skelton filed suit.
Had the Democratic Party paid Skelton her due back in 1995, all they would have had to pull together would have been $55,000 for unpaid salary, expenses and a bonus for achieving those objectives established by the committee. In fact, in January 1997, then executive committee member Bill Guy, who appointed the ad hoc committee that fired Skelton, told the Clarion Ledger, “We’ll pay her every dime we owe her.”
Skelton hasn’t seen a dime, has never been offered a settlement, and after six years of attorneys’ fees, the Dems are now looking at a very pretty penny in a Hinds County jury trial.
That is, if the trial ever comes to the courtroom. Delay after delay, six years after filing suit, Alice Skelton was finally to have had her day in court this week. For nine months it has been scheduled to take place yesterday and conclude today. Last Friday, after months of waiting, the Mississippi Democratic Party filed a motion to open discovery. Judge Winston Kidd agreed and granted them sixty days of discovery. The next possible trial date is in July of 2003.
Apparently the Democrats believe they don’t have to pay their employee.
They claim that they never actually entered into contract with her. And even if they did, it wasn’t official. And even if it was, she was in breach of it. And even if she wasn’t, it prevents her from suing. The Democrats filed a counter-suit against Skelton demanding compensatory damages, attorneys’ fees and “Punitive damages in an amount sufficient to punish the counter-defendant for her egregious conduct and to deter her and other similarly situated from like conduct in the future.” [Note to self: never advise anyone to be executive director of Mississippi Democratic Party.]
Let’s review some of that egregious conduct. When the delegates from Mississippi left the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, they skipped town on their hotel bills. As executive director of the Mississippi Democratic Party, Skelton paid the bill of $5000, assuming the party would pay these expenses. She is still waiting.
Skelton helped the Democrats elect State Senator Ronnie Musgrove to be Lieutenant Governor, beating the Republican incumbent Eddie Briggs.
Musgrove will likely be engaged in a reelection campaign for governor before Skelton has her day in court. The Democrats will be running their 2003 statewide campaigns while they still haven’t paid Skelton for her work in 1995 campaigns.
Is this the party of organized labor? WorldCom should take a lesson, don’t hide debt to boost your bottom line, just don’t pay your employees. In Mississippi courts, you may never have to, if you are politically connected.
Brian Perry is a columnist for the Madison County Journal and Editor of MagnoliaReport.com.
Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, December 09, 2002
Article comment by:
Rudy Johnson
The comment posted by Sue Livingston states that the court will know the "truths" of this case when it gets the case. Mrs. Livingston is assuming that the Dems will allow the court to get the case. The Dems are only delaying this case because they know they are in the wrong and they do not want to pay up. So much for the party of the "working people".
Posted: Sunday, September 29, 2002
Article comment by:
sue livingston
Mr.Perry,you do not have all the truths in this issue.Ms DEmocrats are right on their truths the court shall know it when they see it.
