The Taylorville branch of the AFSCME union is starting the process of gathering testimonials after the NAACP accused a city official of racial and homophobic slurs in the workplace at last Monday’s city council meeting.

Taylorville AFSCME Employee Representative Ingbert Schmidt says before Monday, he had no knowledge of any incidents involving Taylorville Street and Sewer Superintendent Dick Wiseman. But union members have came to him with incident reports since the accusations from NAACP Springfield chapter president Teresa Haley came out.

Schmidt says there had not been any formal complaints or grievances filed by the union before, but that the issue had been directly taken to a past Taylorville mayor. Also, a representative of the Illinois Department of Human Rights told Regional Radio News in an email that no grievances had been filed against Wiseman with their department. Schmidt says the union is happy the NAACP has brought these issues to light so they can prevent these kinds of issues from happening in the future.

Haley says she hopes that positive change can be brought out of these reports.

Schmidt is asking any union member with knowledge of any incidents to come to the union so they can effectively pursue further action.