CABQ-Seal-ImageALBUQUERQUE — Tensions are running so high within the city’s blue-collar workers’ union local over its endorsement of Mayor Martin Chavez that the group’s top two officials ended up in a police report.

Albuquerque police were called to the union hall of AFSCME Local 624 last Thursday night, where the membership was voting on whether they agreed with the parent union’s endorsement of Chavez.

The local is one of several that make up AFSCME’s PEOPLE Committee, which makes political endorsements. The local’s vice president, Jerry Sanchez, told the Independent last week that the endorsement was made before the membership was adequately polled and that the vote held from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. last Thursday would allow the members to have their say.

According to Sanchez, the union needed 10 percent of its members to vote last Thursday in order to make the vote a legitimate representation of the membership. Ultimately, 91 members voted out of a total of 850 members.

Things got heated, Sanchez alleged, when the local’s president, Steve Griego, tried to impede the effort by calling members and telling them the voting would be over by 3 p.m.

“He was mad that I was calling people and telling them that he was trying to stop the vote,” Sanchez said, “but that’s the truth of it. And I was trying to do everything in my power to keep it going.”

The police report describes Sanchez’s claim this way:

According to Mr. Sanchez, there is some controversy in the union over an endorsement of Mayor Martin Chavez that was made by the union board. On this day, union members were voting on a referendum to put the issue of the endorsement up before the general membership. Sanchez went on to tell us that the union President, Steven Griego, had been calling union members and telling them that the voting was going to be over at 3 p.m. Mr. Sanchez stated that he had been having to call back members to tell them that the voting actually ended at 7 p.m. He implied to us that Mr. Griego was intentionally trying to deceive the members the of the union in order to influence the vote outcome.

The conflict escalated, Sanchez said, with Griego coming to the union hall and hitting him, at which time he called the police.

The police report states that Sanchez said Griego showed up at the voting site and ultimately hit him on the back of the head and threw the ballot box on the ground. Sanchez then called the police.

Griego has not returned phone calls made to him by the Independent. However, the police report does contain his account of the incident at the union hall.

After speaking with several other union members, none of whom witnessed the alleged assault, the police officer approached Griego.

“He immediately said, ‘I’m assuming that you have come here to talk to me.’ … Without me asking about the accusation of the battery, Mr. Griego went on to elaborate about how he gently patted Mr. Sanchez on the back and invited him outside to discuss the matter.”

The police report further states that one of the union members said he found the ballot box on the floor shortly after the “disturbance.”

The official results of the vote haven’t been made public. The local is holding an executive committee meeting tonight, at which time a decision will be made about whether the results will be given out. That meeting will be directly followed by a general membership meeting.

Sanchez said that the executive committee, of which he’s a member, could choose to withhold the results but that interest is so high among the members it’s unlikely the committee would do that.