The Lady Is Blind

By Bill T. Balais

The Lady Is Blind
This is a vivid story of one man and his colleagues crying for justice against a hostile world in never-ending oppression, discrimination, and harassment they have been subjected to in the workplace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 31, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462828111

Bill T. Balais

Bill T. Balais is a U.S. Navy and Vietnam veteran who served his country with honor, respect, and integrity, for over twenty years. His last duty station was at FACSFAC at NAS North Island, San Diego, California, where he served as the supply and budget officer and actively supported the Navy’s EEO program. Bill worked his way up the ladder of success as a contract administrator/negotiator for the federal government, administering contracts worth millions of dollars. During his career, he was also recognized as the EEO special emphasis program manager for Asian-Pacific Islanders on board NAVELEX, an agency under the Department of Defense. His achievements include several Special Acts awards and recognitions from the government, including a Congressional award for community service. He holds a degree in Liberal Arts, major in Political Science, and another degree in Social Sciences, major in Management. Bill is happily married to Ofelia Reyes Balais and lives in San Diego, California, with his three children. ooOOOoo

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The Cold Treatment

Does exposure of misconducts and abuses really matter even when it is committed on board of one of the agencies of the federal government? When honor, dignity, and lives or existence are at stake, irregardless of who commits them, the answer is a definite yes. Ours is a government of laws and not of men. No one should be above the law. At SPAWAR, it is a big question mark (?). Minorities continue to suffer in silence because they have no means of defending or protecting themselves. The few people designated to rule SPAWAR believe that because of their color, they should be above and beyond the reach of the law. They continue to promote that colors other than white are inferior class of people and should be treated as such.

My daily harassment and discrimination days started when my former agency, NISE West (Formerly Naval Electronics Systems Engineering Center San Diego (NAVELEX) was consolidated as one big agency under the name of Naval Space Warfare Center San Diego (SPAWAR), that was around August 1995. All of us federal contract specialists were absorbed and moved to SPAWAR Point Loma Complex. There was no new employee orientation given to us. The first week, all my associates and friends, including myself, who were forced to move out to Point Loma Complex, felt as being an outsider. Most of these associates are minorities who are blacks, Italian descents, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Latinos, and Melanesians. We are all Americans and yet were treated very differently as low-class employees. We were just plain numbers to them instead of being treated as human beings at SPAWAR. After a couple of years, the harassment and discrimination became very visible. I filed for discriminatory treatment and harassment against my Supervisor Rick Esaias concerning my yearly evaluations via EEO. They did not add up and even compare to nonproducing employees under his wings. It was denied without a hearing, and that was around the year 1998. That’s the time when I filed an EEO complaint against my Supervisor Rick Esaias. That was the time when all kinds of false report of wrongdoings was made in black and white against me to smear my good name as a professional and career Contracts Specialist for the U.S. Government. As a professional, I take pride in what I do. I am just a small fish in a big pond trying to get things done, on what I think is the right way to do and for the right reason. Their appointed and supposedly independent Fact Finder, by the name of Phil Cano, who was to make an unbiased finding but did not, colluded with Rick Esaias, to make them, the harassers, look good and honest and straightforward individuals in his report. (See Attached copies obtained from the SPAWAR Personnel Office). It’s a good thing that I dropped by the Personnel Office, for no copies of such fact findings were ever shared or given to me. It was all done under the table by the harassers and his cronies. There was no comment even from the EEO office located in the same building where the personnel office was. An initial investigative questioning was initiated by the legal office by one of their counselors by the name of Atty Rena Fox. None of this brought any result. There was no sharing of the fact findings to the complainant. One can smell that a collusion or conspiracy was taking place for a cover-up of civil right abuses.

Minorities could not fight back. As one of those unfortunate victims of harassment, discrimination, and blatant abuses from the infamous SPAWAR’s Injustice at SPAWAR Point Loma Complex, I dared to challenge these wrongdoings hurled at me by my supervisors but to no avail. Jesse submitted a request form through the chain of command to see the commanding officer. I found out one month after that, my request was trashed in the dead file located at the basement by the then supply and contract department head, Daniel Lumpkins. Dan was the last of the four persons who intimidated me to withdraw my request which I courteously declined. The finding was verified by Ms. Rena Fox, one of the legal counselors for SPAWAR but did nothing. The old saying that says, you can’t fight the City Hall, holds true in many cases including my own at SPAWAR San Diego. I tried to go to the legal system of correcting these abuses on board this Command only to find out the local EEO officers inside this naval base, and their sworn-in fact finder, were not interested in you. They all worked in behalf of the abusers, including the Command’s Legal Counsels. (See attached records of Facts Finder, Phil Cano’s supposed to be independent report but favored the abusers). This has been the existing mode of operation on how management treats minorities: through threat and intimidation and degradation. They have the full support of the two-star Admiral who sees nothing and hears nothing. His nonaction can all be summed up in eleven letters: complacency.

CHAPTER 2

A Matter of Honor:

To Accept or Not Accept

At SPAWAR (Navy Space Warfare Systems Center San Diego), all they cared about is to get rid of you at whatever cost. They bribed Jane Doe (Ms. Thalia Carini, an Italian American). Another employee, another American, reported his being harassed at the workplace. Mr. John Doe (Larry Guillory, a black) did not get a fair trial either and was later forced out of office, without even reprimanding the abusers. They also forcefully bribed him by intimidation or threat. And another Italian American (Ernest Bellantoni), suffered about the same fate I underwent or experienced or worst. He was also placed in solitary confinement in a single contaminated room, with all its asbestos and toxic chemicals enveloping the entire spaces, as his assigned working space and office, all to himself, to inhale and to absorb all the toxic chemicals detrimental to his health. I came to the conclusion that they, the Elite Whites, wanted to get rid of him for good. EB is a senior electronics engineer, who made the same mistakes I did. And that was exposing their acts of abuses and misconduct. The management, with their legal counsel’s full support, tried to bribe him to forget everything. He, too, did decline courteously, their very generous offer of bribery to keep him quiet in trying to keep their abuses of human rights under the rugs and within the confines of the Naval Space Warfare Center San Diego, here at sunny San Diego, California.

Jesse’s situation was no different. The command tried to bribe me with $772.00 in exchange to keep my mouth shut and forget that the harassment and harsh treatment ever happened. Just ask Ms. Rena Fox, Scott Miller, the lawyers for the defense for the SPAWAR agency. Jesse’s answer to the government lawyer, Atty Rena Fox was: No thank you, counselor. Her response was, You are not going to win. I said, I know that but I still have my respect, honor, and dignity to protect, uphold, and preserve. She also offered me to be relocated to another location within the same compound, so my harassers would not see my face. There was no attempt of bringing to light all these abuses, harassment, and discrimination by those entrusted with great responsibility and trust placed in their collective shoulders. No one was doing anything to either correct them or stop them from occurring again and again or make the abusers