Parks tapped as new president of state employees union

Aug. 24, 2007 (COLUMBUS) – Delegates at the convention of Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, the largest state employees union, today tapped Columbus resident Eddie L. Parks to be the 36,000-member organization’s new president through 2011. Parks has been OCSEA’s vice president for the last four years.

The newly elected officers are sworn in. Taking the oath of office are (l-r) Vice President Christopher Mabe, Secretary-Treasurer Kathy Stewart, and President Eddie Parks

Long-time union activist Christopher Mabe, a corrections sergeant at the Lorain Correctional Institution, won the voting for vice president, and delegates returned Kathy Stewart as the union’s state secretary-treasurer. Stewart works in Columbus for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.

Participants in the biennial conference of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association have been meeting in Columbus since Thursday and wraps up their deliberations on Saturday.

Parks, an energy specialist for the Public Utility Commission of Ohio, defeated Ron Alexander who has headed the union for two decades. Before serving as vice president, Parks served as a long-time member of OCSEA’s Board of Directors and chaired the group’s education, professional and internal dispute committees. He earned his master’s degree from Ohio State University.

At the time of his election, Mabe was one of the union’s district presidents and president of the group’s chapter at the Lorain prison.  A 17-year employee in Ohio’s prison system, Mabe has been a long-time opponent of private prisons and more recently has been active in opposing overcrowding and understaffing in the state’s prisons system. His workplace has the greatest overcrowding of all the Ohio’s prisons, holding more than twice the number of inmates it was designed to house.

Kathy Stewart was re-elected to her second four-year term as the union’s secretary-treasurer. Stewart has worked for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services for 33 years and has a member of the group’s contract negotiating body for nearly 20 yeses. She is also vice president of the Ohio AFL-CIO’s Union Label Council.

OCSEA represents 36,000 public employees in a variety of blue-collar, semi-professional, professional and security occupations including state highway, security, skilled trades, mental health/mental retardation/developmental disabilities direct care, regulatory, clerical, scientific, legal and information technology workers.

The union is affiliated with the 1.4 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

See Related

Biennial Convention Website

VIDEO: Newly-elected officers sworn in; President Eddie Parks calls for unity

More convention videos of speakers, events

Download Photos - Digital photos of Parks, Mabe and Stewart are available below.

President Eddie L. Parks (JPEG - high / color)

President Eddie L. Parks (JPEG - high / bw)

Vice President Christopher Mabe (JPEG - high / color)

Secretary-Treasurer Kathy Stewart (JPEG - low / color)

Secretary-Treasurer Kathy Stewart (JPEG - high / bw)