Ernie Schlich brings on Four Controversies

Ernie Schlich is a quiet sort of guy. Always around but rarely says
anything. He does his job and minds his business. Never any problem
with good ole' Ernie.

That was until last week when Ernie Schlich surprised everybody by
announcing that he was running for USCF Executive Board. Almost
immediately, four controversies broke out. I have not reported them
here until now, hoping that they will blow over. Now it is clear that
they will not blow over, so I will tell you about them.

Controversy Number One

The last day to file petitions was April 17 and five candidates were
certified the next day. The following day, Ernie Schlich proposed as a
way of verifying that these persons had been actually signed, that the
signed petitions be scanned and posted on the USCF website.

At 12:58 PM 4/19/2006 -0400, Ernest Schlich wrote:
With the short time frame between receipt and validation, you are
absolutely correct. Placing scaned copies of the petition signatures on
the website is worth considering.

Regards, Ernie

This proposal brought on a firestorm of controversy. I objected
because I am a controversial person in the USCF and therefore some
members are afraid to sign my petitions for fear of retaliation by the
bigwigs. Therefore, I have to assure everyone who signs that their
signing will not be publicized.

USCF Executive Director Bill Hall had another objection. He said that
placing scanned copies of the signed petitions on the website would
enable criminals to get an exact copy of the signatures and therefore
they could forge the names and steal identities.

With this compelling reason, Ernie's idea was dropped.

Controversy Number Two.

Mike Goodall noticed that in the current Issue of Chess Life on page
7, there is an article entitled "Ernie Schlich , April USCF Volunteer
of the Month". Mike, who, for the past 44 years has been a major
organizer of USCF tournaments as well as a major financial contributor
to USCF causes, asked "He even got a picture. Just now we have a new
title: Volunteer of the Month. I've never seen that before. Was I
considered for this lofty title? If not Why not? Can I be Volunteer
of the Month in June?"

Robert Tanner, who proposed the title of Volunteer of the Month,
wrote:

"I admit to being a bit flumoxed. This award was created, and I first
nominated Ernie, when there wasn't even going to be an election - Greg
Shahade had yet to resign. Further it was initially thought that the
article was going to appear earlier. "

Flummoxed is a word. It means confused. I had to look that up. I think
everybody accepts that it was an unfortunate accident. Nobody thought
or even dreamed that Ernie Schlich was going to run for election.
However, it is the kind of damage that is impossible to undo, and
might give Ernie his margin of victory.

Controversy Number Three

I will save that for the next posting.

Sam Sloan

Sam Sloan wrote:

Mike Goodall noticed that in the current Issue of Chess Life on page
7, there is an article entitled "Ernie Schlich , April USCF Volunteer
of the Month". Mike, who, for the past 44 years has been a major
organizer of USCF tournaments as well as a major financial contributor
to USCF causes, asked "He even got a picture. Just now we have a new
title: Volunteer of the Month. I've never seen that before. Was I
considered for this lofty title? If not Why not? Can I be Volunteer
of the Month in June?"

Sorry, June is taken. And I'm not telling who it is.

From: Richard Koepcke Jr
To: Mike Nolan
Sent: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 00:30:26 -0700
Subject: [USCF Election] [USCF Bylaws] volunteer of the
month

All,

My position is also no on both issues. Clearly an Employee ( or
contractor for that matter ) is someone who is compensated for time
spent working on a project for the USCF, not someone who is only
reimbursed for incidental expenses in doing the same. And as Harold
points out, the barrier is to current employees of the USCF, not
ex-employees. Even if the "ex" part is only one day after leaving USCF
employment.

By the way, Article VI, section 4 only bars an employee from being
nominated, it does not prevent an employee from actually serving. This
maybe an area where a technical amendment to the bylaws maybe in
order.

Regards
Richard Koepcke


I am glad that at least Richard Koepcke agrees with me. A person who
does work and gets money for it is an employee in the commonly
understood meaning of the term. It does not matter whether he gets a
W-2 Form, a 1099 Form or no form at all and is working off the books
or is an illegal alien who swam ashore recently, he is still an
employee.

Now, Ernie is going to be working as a TD again at the National
Elementary (K-6) School Championship in Denver, May 12-14, 2006. He
apparently must believe that he will be allowed to work these big
tournaments every few weeks after he has been elected (as he obviously
will be in view of the huge advantage he has over the other
candidates).

So, that is my next question: Is there any limit to this? Will or will
not Ernie have to give up some of these tournament directing jobs if
he is elected? He and we need to know now because Ernie does not have
any other job, other than directing USCF tournaments and working
off-the-books for the USCF.

Sam Sloan

From: Richard Koepcke Jr
To: Mike Nolan
Sent: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 00:30:26 -0700
Subject: [USCF Election] [USCF Bylaws] volunteer of the
month

All,

My position is also no on both issues. Clearly an Employee ( or
contractor for that matter ) is someone who is compensated for time
spent working on a project for the USCF, not someone who is only
reimbursed for incidental expenses in doing the same. And as Harold
points out, the barrier is to current employees of the USCF, not
ex-employees. Even if the "ex" part is only one day after leaving USCF
employment.

By the way, Article VI, section 4 only bars an employee from being
nominated, it does not prevent an employee from actually serving. This
maybe an area where a technical amendment to the bylaws maybe in
order.

Regards
Richard Koepcke


I am glad that at least Richard Koepcke agrees with me. A person who
does work and gets money for it is an employee in the commonly
understood meaning of the term. It does not matter whether he gets a
W-2 Form, a 1099 Form or no form at all and is working off the books
or is an illegal alien who swam ashore recently, he is still an
employee.

Now, Ernie is going to be working as a TD again at the National
Elementary (K-6) School Championship in Denver, May 12-14, 2006. He
apparently must believe that he will be allowed to work these big
tournaments every few weeks after he has been elected (as he obviously
will be in view of the huge advantage he has over the other
candidates).

So, that is my next question: Is there any limit to this? Will or will
not Ernie have to give up some of these tournament directing jobs if
he is elected? He and we need to know now because Ernie does not have
any other job, other than directing USCF tournaments and working
off-the-books for the USCF.

Sam Sloan

At 11:03 PM 4/30/2006 -0700, Richard Koepcke Jr wrote:
Sam,

You are misstating my position. My email, sent internally to the
Bylaws committee, was intended to support the position that someone getting
reimbursed for expenses was not an employee. Not that anyone getting
money from the USCF is an employee.

There is a big difference between someone who is on the USCF payroll
(employee) and someone who is paid to perform a specific set of tasks, but is
not formally on the payroll ( contractor ). The bylaws as they are
currently written do not bar someone who is in the latter category
from being nominated for the Executive Board. If you believe otherwise,
then you should bring a motion to change the bylaws to reflect this
at the next available delegates meeting.

Regards
Richard Koepcke

Dear Richard,

If that is what you believe, then you are wrong. Ernie Sclich is
clearly an employee of the USCF. He works full time for the USCF. The
amount of money he receives from the USCF is substantial. He has no
other job.

I will give you an example: My wife. My wife goes to work every day.
She does bookkeeping and accounting work for a Japanese dance school.
They have about 30 Japanese girls who teach dance to other Japanese
girls. At the end of the year, my wife issues a 1099 Form to herself
and to all the teachers of dance. When my wife comes home, she does
not say that she came home from doing a contracting job. She says that
she came home from work.

Bill Hall, in the discussion of this issue, wrote: "As far as Ernie
goes, he has simply been reimbursed for expenses for training he
provided and refused compensation for a considerable amount of work."

Note that Bill Hall also uses the term "work" to describe what Ernie
does for the Federation.

At the local public library, the librarian who works there told me
that she is often asked to volunteer to do things for the library. She
says that she used to volunteer when she first started to work there,
but now she tries to get other newer members of the staff to
volunteer. She says that her policy now is to "avoid" volunteering.
Obviously, when regular employees are asked to volunteer to do some
unpaid work they are under some form of coercion. If they do not
volunteer, they can be fired on some pretext and another employee more
willing to volunteer will be hired, so they "volunteer". Remember that
this lady works for the City of New York and has job protection that
private employees do not have.

Ernie Schlich gets highly lucretive directing jobs almost every
weekend lately for which he is paid very well by the USCF. Other
qualified directors are asking why Ernie gets all the good jobs and
the other directors cannot get these jobs. We know the answer. Ernie
gets all the good jobs because he is a "volunteer" for other jobs.

Everybody I have spoken to realizes that what brought this all on is
last year Beatriz Marinello worked in the office for three months and
received $11,000 and yet she claimed that she was not an employee but
was a "volunteer". Now, Ernie Schlich and Grant Perks figure that if
Beatriz can do it, they can do it too. Everybody is afraid to say no.

However, I am shocked that you, Richard Koepcke, who is of somewhat
higher ilk than the others, would sign on to this obvious scam and
claim that what you wrote is the opposite of what you actually wrote.

Thank you for your suggestion that I bring on a motion concerning
this. The right place to bring this motion would be the Appellate
Division, Second Department.

Sam Sloan