wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] ACSWP chair decries staff dismissals

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8697 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05177
April 1, 2005

ACSWP chair decries staff dismissals 

Harper tells GAC that Sulyok firing was 'very distressing loss'

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Still upset over last year's dismissal of the Rev. Peter Sulyok,
coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), the
committee chair again decried the termination during a General Assembly
Council (GAC) meeting Thursday. 

	Sulyok was fired after an ACSWP delegation touring the Middle East
met with the alleged terrorist group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon last
October.

	The Rev. Nile Harper, the ACSWP chair, called Sulyok's firing in
November a "very distressing loss" for the committee, which develops social
policies for General Assembly consideration. The advisory committee reports
directly to the Assembly, although its staff members report to GAC Executive
Director John Detterick.

	"This is both an emotional and substantive loss to us in our work as
we seek to serve you and the General Assembly," Harper told the council.

	Harper, who lives near Minneapolis, MN, included a letter with
ACSWP's report to the council. The letter, which Harper signed, said: "It
appears to ACSWP that the termination of Peter Sulyok was carried out without
a just cause or appropriate due process." 

	Harper criticized the GAC's personnel committee and its January
review of the dismissal, charging that it examined only the firing process
followed by Detterick and not the "mitigating" circumstances surrounding it.

	"It appears to ACSWP that the review of the dismissals conducted by
the GAC Personnel Committee did not seriously consider the issues,
substances, circumstances or mitigating factors involved in the actions of
Peter Sulyok and Kathy Lueckert," the letter said. 

	Sulyok had served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for nearly 12
years. Lueckert, the former GAC deputy executive director and Sulyok's direct
supervisor, had worked for the denomination for five years.

	ACSWP's letter urged the GAC to examine its personnel policies, which
sanction unilateral dismissals of staff by the executive director.

	"We urge the General Assembly Council not simply to let the
dismissals of Peter Sulyok and Kathy Lueckert pass by without serious
reflection and appropriate action in ways that can help prevent this kind of
tragic loss of a colleague in the future," it said. 

	Later, the council went into executive session to discuss the
firings. No action was taken. 

	The GAC's personnel committee unanimously upheld Detterick's firings
of Sulyok and Lueckert and the council's executive committee unanimously
supported the personnel committee's conclusion that the dismissals were done
in accord with established policies.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org