The Massachusetts CCC is, as we all know, a disaster zone.
Even Dynasty or Peyton Place couldn’t compete with this never ending set of outrageous plotlines.
WBUR write
Three former high-level staffers at the state’s Cannabis Control Commission say they suffered workplace bullying by the agency’s communications chief, adding to a growing list of complaints about a toxic culture and poor management inside the embattled agency.
The former employees, all of whom are women, say they were pushed out or chose to leave between 2019 and 2021 because of harassment by Cedric Sinclair. He went on to receive a promotion and raises, state records show, until he was suspended last December.
Human Resources Director Justin Shrader was suspended at the same time. The commission has not provided a public explanation for the two suspensions.
The reports of bullying by Sinclair are the latest example of chaotic and bitter dealings at the commission tasked with overseeing the state’s $6 billion marijuana industry. And for the women, there was also hypocrisy, they say: an agency that professes to be devoted to equity in public allegedly did not stand up for employees in private.
Sinclair referred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment on the record. Shrader did not return requests for comment; he resigned soon after his suspension.
The commission’s chair, Shannon O’Brien, also is currently suspended and publicly feuding with state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who appointed her but is now holding closed-door hearings that could end in O’Brien’s firing.
The former women staffers who complained about Sinclair all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisal. They described a toxic workplace environment where Sinclair allegedly belittled and antagonized women who worked for and alongside him.
One staffer resigned in 2021, after the commission cleared Sinclair of wrongdoing in a complaint she filed against him, according to emails provided to WBUR.
“Your Chief of Communications continues to emotionally abuse, sabotage, and gaslight Black and Brown women,” she said in a resignation letter reviewed by WBUR.
“I cannot go unsupported any longer and I refuse to work for an agency that promotes abuse, especially amongst their leadership,” she wrote.
Another former employee, who held a director-level position, said she felt Sinclair acted like he had “a position of power over women in the workplace, and that’s who he subjected to his abuse, to his bullying.” That employee quit in 2020.
Read the full story
https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/05/31/cannabis-control-commission-toxic-culture-cedric-sinclair
Also we refer you to this Linked In post explaining where and how the story originated – click to go to the source
