SEIU’s Mega-Local Meltdown: Size Matters, But Members Matter More

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5629/seius_mega-local_meltdown_size_matters_but_members_matter_more/

Nearly one year after Massachusetts local makeover, California follows suit

By Steve Early

When rank-and-file members run for office in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), it’s not easy to win—or even run. And that’s not by accident.

In Los Angeles Local 6434, for example, officials installed by President Andy Stern adopted an election rule found illegal by the U.S. Department of Labor, but approved by Stern. The by-laws required would-be candidates to collect nearly 5,000 names on nominating petitions. In a “local” of 160,000—most of whom are home-based workers who never see other members—this was foolproof incumbent protection. It was also a formula for uncontested elections ad infinitum and lack of leadership accountability to the rank-and-file. (Not coincidently, 6434 soon became the scene of a major 2008 corruption scandal involving the local’s top officer, Tyrone Freeman, who misappropriated nearly $1 million from its treasury.)

Even in SEIU “mega-locals” where there’s no stealing, lack of accountability to the membership is still a big problem. When previously separate locals are merged to create new ones covering a whole state or region of the country—a widespread practice in Stern’s union—the official rationale is that such consolidation “builds power for workers.”

But a number of recently-restructured SEIU locals, run without benefit of elected leaders—who were removed in favor of appointed officers and staff—have proven to be extremely dysfunctional and unpopular with dues-payers. On both coasts, SEIU-represented workers, particularly in the public sector, are saying that “power” was taken away from them, in their own union, and they want it back—so they can deal more effectively with their employers.

Mass mega local's makeover


The trend of reclaiming big public employee locals from discredited and increasingly incompetent Stern appointees began last Spring in Massachusetts. The 10,000-member Local 888 was the product of SEIU restructuring that shuffled workers around like pieces of furniture for several years; through a combination of trusteeships and then mergers, some members were deprived of the right to vote for local officers for as long as five years.

By early 2009, Local 888 was in bad shape financially and literally coming apart at the seams. Angry members in some of its 207 separate state, county, and municipal bargaining units were petitioning the labor relations commission to decertify the union. In 2005, the local’s largest unit, composed of 2,000 workers at U-Mass, was so disgruntled that, after a long struggle, it was allowed to leave and join the Massachusetts Teachers Association/NEA).

888’s steward system was in disarray. High staff turn-over continually disrupted contract negotiations and enforcement. When members had a workplace problem, they were told to contact 888’s “call center” which was not good at returning calls. Due to local fiscal crises throughout the state, government workers were at risk of losing jobs, pay, or benefits. But that didn’t stop Susana Segat, a loyal ally of Andy Stern on SEIU’s national executive board (who was originally appointed by him to run 888), from awarding herself a whopping presidential salary increase.

After a difficult campaign, the second of its kind against Segat, the Change888 slate succeeded in ousting her last April, by a two-to-one margin, with 22 percent of the membership voting. (For a full account, see "Members of a Massachusetts SEIU Local Dislodge an Incumbent," by Bruce Boccardy.) Unlike Segat, who was never a working member of 888—a not uncommon but often unhelpful leadership credential in SEIU—her challenger, Bruce Boccardy, had spent many years in SEIU bargaining units as a Boston city employee and active steward. Since taking over the local with a like-minded group of reformers, he has expanded steward training and recruitment.

The local now tries to keep everyone better informed with regular newsletters, flyers, and an e-bulletin called The Spark, which is reaching 3,000 members at their home email addresses. Worker participation in bargaining, organizing, and political action has been actively encouraged and would-be defectors have been urged to give SEIU another chance.

Unlike his aloof and imperious predecessor, Boccardy makes frequent workplace visits. He has cut his own salary, empowered the executive board, and invited members and their families to visit the union office. He is also trying hard to repair 888’s damaged relations with a wide range of community-based organizations, including Jobs With Justice, the workers’ rights coalition that 888 abandoned under Segat. (Last Saturday, the local even hosted a well-attended JWJ training session attended by 100 members of SEIU, IBEW, CWA, AFSCME, AFT, AFGE, and other unions.)

“Our goal,” Boccardy explained in a recent open letter, is to “transform [888] into a model for other SEIU locals….We believe that none of our goals and objectives will be realized without a highly active membership.”

California's victorious change slate


As reported in the last several days by Labor Notes and Randy Shaw’s Beyond Chron, “Change888” has now been joined by “Change1021,” a completely separate but similarly inspired movement of northern California public workers to reclaim their local as well. Local 1021 posed an even bigger challenge for reformers, who swept 26 out of 28 elected positions there last Friday.

As its number implies, 1021 is the product of an even grander Stern consolidation of ten locals into one, three years ago. The combined membership—five times larger than 888’s—extends all the way from the Bay Area to the Oregon border.

As San Francisco EMT Larry Bradshaw, 1021’s newly-elected third vice-president explains, the International’s original merger scenario was to tighten headquarters control over the local’s affairs—for the benefit of the membership, of course.

“Stern justified his centralizing agenda on the claim that ‘bigger equals stronger,'" says Bradshaw. A protégé and loyal lieutenant—in this case, Damita Davis-Howard—was picked to run the merged local. Per usual, he says,

"...the appointee faces no election for three years and uses the power of the presidency, and patronage, to build a base and transition seamlessly into becoming an elected leader. [But] Stern’s formula was dysfunctional from the beginning, with many staff vacancies and no one overseeing contract issues for thousands of city and county workers."

Then came the recession. “In the face of budget deficits and aggressive employers, Local 1021 proved disorganized as leaders conceded to almost any demands by employers for concessions,” Bradshaw says. Many members began to conclude that “bigger seems to mean more bureaucratic,’ not more effective or responsive.

In late January, a 1,500-worker 1021 unit in Marin County did what smaller 888 groups started to do in Massachusetts under Segat—they petitioned to replace SEIU with an independent union.

Change1021 hopes to discourage this exodus and revitalize the local, drawing on the skills and experience of its leaders and supporters. Their opposition ticket included classified school employees, municipal workers, nurses, transit workers, and staffers at nonprofits, like the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, where new president Roxanne Sanchez, a former BART union activist, works. She won by a 2 to 1 margin. Meanwhile, her running-mate for local “CEO,” Sin Yee Poon, a rank-and-file leader from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, defeated Davis-Howard by 700 votes out of 5,300 cast a 4-way race.

'Extraordinary disaffection'

The platform of Change1021 echoes that of Change888. It calls for greater “democracy and accountability,” “financial transparency,” “rebuilding from the bottom up,” “better communication and access to information,” resistance to contract concessions, and restoring membership pride in the union.

The 1021 reformers also made a point of declaring that they “will not spend a penny” of “precious local resources” to “raid or attack other unions.” They criticized SEIU for “spending tens of millions of our dues dollars” on such fights—a reference to Stern’s costly and controversial wars with UNITE HERE and the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which is gaining ground on SEIU in California health care.

As Poon told Labor Notes readers: “We will have to deal with a huge task of rebuilding a union in a new direction.” “Even in better times this was difficult,” Sanchez agrees. “But, with our local union in such disorder and our International union so estranged from its members, it will be a formidable challenge.”

One observer wishing them well and applauding their achievement is a Bay Area NUHW founder. He was part of the talented and dedicated leadership cadre ousted by Stern a year ago during SEIU’s disastrous take-over over of United Healthcare Workers (UHW), which remains in trusteeship, with thousands of its members poised to join NUHW in upcoming decertification votes.

This longtime union activist, who wished to remain anonymous, was struck by the “extraordinary disaffection and demobilization of the workers” represented by 1021, as reflected in very low voter turn-out.

“In what, by trade union standards, was a hotly contested election, taking place in the middle of a fiscal crisis with wages, benefits, and thousands of jobs on the line, only 5,407 ballots were returned (5,360 valid) out of more than 42,000 eligible to vote and a claimed membership of 54,000?” With this kind of hollowed-out unionism, how long will it be, he asked, “before bosses and politicians figure out that ‘the SEIU juggernaut’ is a paper tiger”—in California and too many other places as well. Read more...

California Reformers Beat Appointees in SEIU Megalocal’s First-Ever Election

California SEIU 1021 Reformers Beat Appointees in SEIU Megalocal’s First-Ever Election
http://www.labornotes.org/2010/02/california-reformers-beat-appointees-seiu-megalocals-fir st-ever-election

Larry Bradshaw| February 28, 2010

Reform forces from across Service Employees Local 1021 uniting under the banner of “Change 1021” swept out appointed leaders in the local’s first-ever elections. In results announced early Saturday, the reform slate took 26 of 28 positions, including the top seven spots.

Local 1021 is one of SEIU’s new megalocals, created from 10 locals. It represents 50,000 primarily public sector workers in California, from the San Francisco Bay to the Oregon border and down into the Central Valley. The local also includes newly unionized nonprofit workers whose agencies are funded by the public sector.

The winners released a statement pledging to work with other candidates and their supporters. "Working together we can fight layoffs, resist concessions and preserve important public and non-profit services for our communities," they said.

Megalocals like 1021 are the brainchild of SEIU President Andy Stern, who has centralized authority and resources in the union. The creation of new locals allows Stern to impose a virtual trusteeship, appointing all the officers and executive board. Typically, Stern appoints a protégé or loyal lieutenant to run a newly created local. At SEIU Local 1021, that was Damita Davis-Howard, a president of one of the 10 merged locals—who nominated Stern when he first ran for International president in 1996.

The appointee faces no election for three years and uses the power of the presidency, and patronage, to build a base and transition seamlessly into an elected leader. Stern has strengthened his control by using this model across the country.

Stern’s formula was dysfunctional in Local 1021 from the beginning, with many staff vacancies and no one overseeing contract issues for thousands of city and county workers. As cutbacks got worse, money was spent on trinkets and poorly attended ice cream socials.

But Local 1021 really ran aground on the recession. Stern had justified his centralizing agenda on the claim that “bigger = stronger.” The recession and its devastating impact on public sector budgets put Local 1021’s appointed leaders to the test, and members now feel that bigger seems to mean more bureaucratic. In the face of budget deficits and aggressive employers, Local 1021 proved disorganized as leaders conceded to almost any demands by employers for concessions.

Members are reeling from successive waves of layoffs, furlough days, and cuts in pay and benefits. Two San Francisco public hospitals laid off nursing assistants and clerks and rehired them at lower pay—and the union didn’t challenge this 20 percent pay cut for mostly women of color until rank-and-file members and community organizations put up a fight.

A local internal council of public workers was abandoned, so rank-and-file workers have met informally to share information about concession demands. Plans they came up with were either vetoed by staff or not resourced.

Years into the recession, the local lacks a plan. It lurches from crisis to crisis, constantly months behind.

These failings led to the emergence of a broad reform slate, including classified school employees, municipal workers, nurses, transit workers, and nonprofit employees. Reformers united around an agenda of “Change 1021 to Member-Run,” with Roxanne Sanchez, who works at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, running for president. She won by a 2 to 1 result.

Reform forces began to coalesce during a long fight between 2006 and 2008 over the new local’s bylaws. Reformers fought for a strong and representative executive board while appointed officers maneuvered for a strong-president form of governance.

The most contentious issue was the role of staff, in a union with a history of being staff-run. Rank-and-file leaders proposed that staff could not run for president and other high offices. This would have eliminated Davis-Howard as a candidate, set a “bad example” for other SEIU locals, and upset Stern’s master plan.

Rank-and-file members eventually won even the majority of Stern’s hand-picked executive board to adopt the position. Davis-Howard appealed to Stern, who, not surprisingly, ruled that staff could run for president.

After reformers threatened to run a “vote no” campaign, a compromise was crafted where the president would be a rank-and-file member but the local would have a Chief Elected Officer, a position for which staff could run. The CEO would control hiring, firing, and assignment of staff.

Sin Yee Poon, a rank-and-file leader from San Francisco’s Human Services Agency, says, “This ‘elected’ CEO position is a monstrosity that turns what is essentially an executive director position into an elected officer who does not report to the executive board.”

Reformers suspect the International saw the CEO position as a way to salvage Davis-Howard’s election prospects and keep the International’s hand in the local’s affairs. The message from Stern was clear: accept the compromise or face a trusteeship. The reformers decided to run Poon for CEO, and she took the position by a 2,141 to 1,445 tally over Davis-Howard.

But some reformers were fed up, after hundreds of hours of work on the bylaw changes. County and municipality workers in Marin County filed a decertification petition January 29 among the 1,500 members of the unit. They plan to create an independent union. Representation was poor; Local 1021 closed the local office in Marin. Other areas are murmuring about decertifying as well.

No date has been set for the Marin decertification election, however, and reformers worked to involve them in the campaign.

THROWN OVERBOARD
When the reform slate formed, the administration team cracked. Some incumbents felt Davis-Howard would be a liability, so they jettisoned her and formed a new slate. Neither of the two incumbent slates claimed the mantle of incumbency. Both repackaged themselves as something new and fresh.

Of course, winning is only the first step. Poon cautions, “We will have to deal with a huge task of rebuilding a union in a new direction.”

Sanchez agrees. “Even in better times this was difficult,” she said, “but with our local union in such disorder and our International union so estranged from its members, it will be a formidable challenge.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry Bradshaw won his bid for third vice president on the Change 1021 slate by a 2,914 to 1,350 result.

http://www.change1021.org/ Read more...

SEIU 221 Abandons $107,000 "Severance" Pay for Moore

Feb 4, 2010

The SEIU Local 221 Executive Board met this evening.


The agenda was amended to NOT have the Board's election of a replacement Secretary of the Local be part of the closed, executive session. The items on repealing the $107,000 severance pay deal and the consulting contract deal for former President Sharon-Frances Moore were hidden away from ordinary members of the union by the tactic of going into closed executive session.

Votes for Local Secretary were 9 for Al Parra and 5 for Rick Lovett. Secretary Parra will now serve as co-president, along with VP James Slade and Treasurer Alison Barkley, until a new permanent replacement for the Local President is voted in.

Around 9 PM the meeting ended and Board members said they repealed the $107,000 severance pay to Moore. They also voted to terminate the 60-day "transitional" consulting contract with her. In other words, the contract had already been signed, despite the warning from International President Andy Stern that it should NOT be.

Before the meeting really got started, Interim Local 221 President Slade read the letter from the U.S. Dept of Labor, in which DOL and the Local agreed to an extension of the deadline for DOL court action, to March 3. The union's attorney, Fern Steiner, then read another letter from DOL to the Local, which states that DOL has made a preliminary finding of VIOLATIONS. Steiner explained that the March 3 deadline was negotiated to give the union extra time to try to show evidence that the DOL's preliminary findings are wrong, and that the union has until Feb. 22 to do that. DOL has focused on the lack of secret ballots at the polls, improper restrictions on candidates right to inspect the union voter/member lists, and LACK OF NOTICE OF ELECTION TO THE MEMBERS.

Steiner was asked by an E-Board member if she had been given copies (by the union) of the complaints and appeals and rulings thus far. Steiner said she "may" have been given a copy of the original election protest (July 2009) but that she was NOT given a copy of the complaint filed with DOL. She said she only recently obtained it, BY DOWNLOADING IT OFF OF THE REFORM221 WEBSITE !!!!!!!

http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/

For Union Democracy,
Monty Kroopkin Read more...

SEIU-sent officials to probe complaints: Ex-labor leader’s pay deal at issue

By Jeff McDonald, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 1:17 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/28/seiu-sent-officials-to-probe-complaints/



OVERVIEW
Background: SEIU Local 221 officials agreed to pay former president Sharon-Frances Moore a severance and hire her as a consultant after accepting her resignation this month.

What’s happening:Officials from the international SEIU office have arrived in San Diego to investigate member complaints.

The future: The investigators will report to international union President Andrew Stern within 30 days.




International leaders of the union representing thousands of county government workers have arrived in San Diego to help sort out a dispute over management of the local group.

Andrew Stern, the international president of Service Employees International Union, appointed two personal representatives to investigate whether the local chapter wrongly paid former president Sharon-Frances Moore a six-figure severance and hired her as a consultant.

Local union officials said they welcome the investigation and help finding a new president. Moore cited personal reasons in resigning this month as president of SEIU Local 221.

Last week, the local’s executive board named three members to manage the union on a day-to-day basis until a successor can be named, but some union members complained that the action violated the organization’s rules.

In a Jan. 22 letter to local union officials from his Washington, D.C., headquarters, Stern said he was looking into the complaints and advised them to withhold any payments to Moore.

“I have directed my representatives to report to me within 30 days on the situation in Local 221,” he wrote. “In the meantime, I counsel the Local 221 officers and executive board not to execute or implement the challenged payments or contract at this time.”

Local 221 spokeswoman Melinda Battenberg said decisions regarding the severance and consulting agreement are internal union business that she cannot discuss publicly.

Specifically, rank-and-file members complained about a $107,000 severance package awarded to Moore and objected that she will keep working for the union as a consultant. Several people wrote to Stern to demand an investigation.

“The general membership of the Local 221 was unhappy before this meeting,” SEIU member Denise Knobloch wrote. “When word becomes more public about these issues, I feel that many more people will pull away from the union.”

Many of the same members previously had filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Labor claiming irregularities in the conduct and results of the July election of union officers.

That complaint is still under review by federal labor officials.

SEIU Local 221, which represents about 10,000 county employees and other workers, is a separate organization from the SEIU bargaining units that were voted out by Kaiser Permanente employees this month.

Jeff McDonald: (619) 293-1708; Read more...

Labor leader resigns amid election dispute

By Jeff McDonald, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Friday, January 22, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/22/labor-leader-resigns-amid-election-dispute/



The president of one of the largest labor groups in the region resigned this week, citing personal reasons for leaving at a time when a recent union election remains in dispute.

Sharon-Frances Moore of Service Employees International Union Local 221 left the labor group Monday, a spokeswoman said. She joined the organization in March 2007.

The union will be jointly managed by the vice president, treasurer and acting secretary as the executive committee searches for a successor over the next several months.

“We negotiated a financial agreement with her, and she will serve as a consultant during this period to make sure our members don’t experience any disruption in services,” communications director Melinda Battenberg said.

The resignation comes amid an ongoing review of the union’s election last summer by the U.S. Department of Labor. A group of members complained that the vote wasn’t conducted fairly.

Moore’s resignation was formally accepted after a meeting of the SEIU Local 221 executive committee Tuesday night.

Battenberg declined to say how much money was involved in the severance package.

“Members are questioning if the severance package deal is ’hush money’ and asking if the union’s officials are trying to avoid another major press scandal over allegations of misuse of union funds,” union activist Monty Kroopkin said in prepared remarks.

Kroopkin was referring to a separate investigation into spending practices of leaders of the international union, which represents about 10,000 employees across San Diego and Imperial counties.

The union was largely responsible for qualifying a measure for the June ballot that would impose term limits on the county Board of Supervisors.

Moore earned $136,120 in 2008, according to the union’s most recent federal tax filing. Before arriving in San Diego, she managed a nonprofit organization that steered government aid and private donations to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Jeff McDonald: (619) 293-1708; jeff.mcdonald@uniontrib.com Read more...

SEIU LocaL 221 President Resigns!

SAN DIEGO -- SEIU Local 221 President Sharon-Frances Moore has resigned. She will get over $107,000 of our union dues money to leave!

It was announced Tuesday evening, January 19, 2010, at a special meeting of the SEIU Local 221 Executive Board. Her stated reasons were "personal". However, it comes after weeks of speculation about ethics charges reportedly filed against her with the International Union. The charges were reportedly filed against her by both members of the paid staff of the Local Union, and by one or more members of the elected Executive Board of the Local.

A federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor is also continuing into charges that her election in July of 2009 was stolen. The federal complaint, filed by candidates and members of the Reform221 Slate, charges that hundreds of the union's members were denied the right to vote. Details of these charges are available at http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/

The Local 221 Acting President, James Slade, began tonight's Executive Board meeting by "entertaining" a motion to "suspend the rules". The motion passed, 7-2. Slade then announced that he, as chair of the meeting, would not recognize any non-board members to speak. The union's constitution expressly states that members of the union have the right to be recognized and to be heard at Executive Board meetings. Although procedural rules adopted by the board may be suspended, the board has no authority to suspend the union's constitution.

The constitution expressly provides that "The meetings of this Local Union shall be governed by Roberts Rules of Order" and "Subject to reasonable application, no provision of these Bylaws, rule of parliamentary procedure, or action by the Union or its officers shall be administered in such a way as to deprive individual members of the following rights: ...The right to appear and be heard by the Executive Board of the Local Union."

During the course of the meeting, a number of members did seek to be recognized or to make points of order, and Slade claimed they were out of order. He went further and said, at one point, that members who would not stop trying to speak would be held to be "insubordinate". Members are not employed by the union and cannot be held to be "insubordinate." Members pay union dues and support an annual union budget of more than $7 million dollars, and have legal rights of participation under both state and federal laws, as well as the union constitution and bylaws.

Slade also "ordered" the union's paid staff to leave the room. They all did so, but the senior staff then returned to the room and stated that under the Local Union's constitution and bylaws, the senior staff are dues paying members of the union, and cannot be forced to leave a normal meeting of the Executive Board. Using his new power as Acting President, Slade then told the senior staff that if they did not obey his order for them to leave the room that they would be "insubordinate". Staff can be fired or disciplined for insubordination. The President of the union has hiring and firing power over the union's paid staff. The senior staff did leave the room, under protest.

The Executive Board then approved a severance package including more than $107,000 in severance pay to Moore. The package, which was not provided to the board in written final form, was said to also include a waiver of Moore's right to exercise her rights regarding any liability of the union.
The Acting President then informed the meeting that the union's constitutional provision for division of the president's powers would be implemented, because he works full time for the city of National City and is not willing to assume the president's duties as a full-time job. The union's constitution provides that the powers will be shared between the Vice-President, the Treasurer and the Secretary of the Local Union.

However, the position of Secretary has been vacant since July 2009 when Secretary Omar Lopez took a job at San Diego State University, and was therefore no longer a member of the union. Slade announced that one of the Executive Board members, Richard Lovett, would be "Acting Secretary" and would share the presidential powers. The union's constitution does not allow the President to make any such appointment to fill a vacancy on the board. Only a vote of the Executive Board can fill a vacancy, and there has been no such vote.
Members are questioning if the severance package deal is "hush money" and asking if the union's officials are trying to avoid another major press scandal over allegations of misuse of union funds.

The meeting was video taped, and members have the right to view the tape at the union hall.

The Local Union's Constitution and Bylaws are available at the union's website at
http://www.seiu221.org/bylaws/Default.aspx Read more...

Reform Slate in SEIU 221 Election!

Reformers threaten County union’s status quo
By Frank Gormlie on July 17th, 2009

[to see the photos, please see the original posting of this article at OBRag.org]

There is an insurgent reform movement within the union that represents most of the County of San Diego’s employees. And it threatens to overturn the status quo within SEIU Local 221. SEIU - or the Service Employees International Union - is the largest public-employee union in the country, and its San Diego affiliate in Local 221 is having an internal election this month. The candidate for president on the reform slate is Monty Kroopkin, an old friend of ours.

SAN DIEGO, CA. Monty Kroopkin appears to be an unlikely candidate for president of Local 221. With his salt and pepper beard and pony-tail, and glasses tipping off his nose, he appears to be more suited for some intellectual post at a local university, or perhaps polishing and working on his Harley.

Yet he and his fellow reformers are running against the status quo in Local 221, a status quo upheld by the current leadership of president Sharon-Francis Moore and her Executive Board. Monty did not mince words in describing the problems he perceives with the union caused by Moore’s presidency.

Patty and I met Kroopkin at his small 2-bedroom North Park home, and with coffee cups in hand, followed him to an upstairs outside deck next to the attached granny flat. There the welcome breeze cooled us.

I have known Monty Kroopkin for many years, since both of us attended UCSD in the early Seventies. Back then, he easily fell into being the mentor for numerous student-journalists on several campus-sponsored newspapers over the years. Monty personified the student-as-activist role model for the waves of younger kids who streamed through the university on their way to careers and middle-class lifestyles, instilling in them a perpetual stance of questioning authority and being on the underdog’s side, whether it was Vietnamese peasants or South African freedom fighters.

Growing up in New York, he had ended up in San Diego in 1970, gravitating to the areas primo college. He had graduated from UCSD with a Sociology and Communications degree, and had started a PhD program that he had to eventually shelve in order to find work and pay the bills.

As our own lives took their separate turns, Monty and I always stayed in touch over the decades since. He had been an early supporter of the original OB Rag, and when this blog appeared, Monty quickly jumped on our bandwagon and has supported us ever since.

So, as I climbed the stairs to the deck for our interview, I felt like I was sitting down with an old friend who was walking out on the proverbial gangplank with his candidacy - for if he loses, his name will be mud around the Union hall on Kearny Mesa Road, a stones throw from 805.



Yet as we talked, and as I listened to his passion for union democracy, his deep concern for the union members, and listened to how he had organized a reform slate to run against the entrenched leadership in the upcoming union elections, my trepidation grew into an excitement that I was unprepared for.

His knowledge of the details of how Local 221 was organized, and all the people it represented, was amazing, but to be expected. The Local, with a membership around 8,000, represents most of the classified workers at the County; these include nurses (public health and at the jails), eligibility workers, social workers, adult probation staff, the clerical staff throughout the County - including the Sheriffs Department, and such folks as environmental health inspectors. This numbers between 13,000 and 15,000 people. The Local does not represent attorneys - DA’s, County counsel, Public Defenders, and does not have Sheriff deputies.

221 also represents clerical people and classified posts at a number of incorporated cities in the County: National City, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Encinitas, San Marcos and even Calexico. These cities combined account for about 500 to 600 workers.

Members get to vote - for officers for the leadership, and theoritically on policies, issues and the direction of the Local. But here is where Kroopkin has problems with the current union leaders.

“The current president, Sharon-Francis Moore, … she and the rest of the appointed Executive Board rigged the vote and wrote the new constitution for the local. The membership was shut out.” Monty explained that Local 221 was formed two years ago with the merger of two other SEIU unions - Local 535 and Local 2028. The International - meaning the national office - led by Andy Stern - appointed Moore and the rest of the current Executive Board. “The members were promised a new election within 6 months,” Monty said.

“And that was a year and a half ago,” I asked. Monty nodded. Sharon-Francis Moore, an attorney from New York, had no area roots, yet she was set up and given an annual salary of over $130,000 by the Ex Board, again a Board appointed by the national’s leadership and beholden to her.

The current president and her senior staff re-wrote the local’s constitution and made deep changes in how the locals that had merged were set up. They minimized the Executive Board, and moved from a proportional representational model where chapters elected people to fill the seats of the Board to one that “was set up to protect their own positions,” Monty said. “Now, there is no rational basis for the seats on the Executive Board,” he added.

I asked Monty point blank: what are his problems with Sharon-Francis Moore.

“Currently,” he said, “she has four unfair labor practices charges filed against her, by her own staff at the union hall.” These folks work for the union as staff. During contract negotiations, a number of them picketed Moore’s home. “She then threatened to take away any Family Leave benefits. She targeted the picketers and the ringleaders - and harassed them with phone calls to their homes.”

Kroopkin continued: “Members complain that their calls to the union are not returned.” This was a common complaint, I said, among members of any union - I had experienced this when I was a union rep years ago.

“Yeah,” he replied. “They missed all kinds of deadlines - grievance deadlines - contract deadlines.”

“One wide-spread complaint (from the members) is poor representation.” Monty went on, “This allows management to run amok!”

There is also, Monty said, “an attitude of arrogance towards the members by senior staff.” He has witnessed times when staff would yell at members, deriding them. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “The staff don’t work for the members, they work for the president.” It should be the other way around, he implied.

“Andy Stern (the International president) has pushed a corporate model of management onto the union.” And now, Monty continued, “there is vast contempt with the union among members. People don’t even know who the leadership is, as there is so little communication with the members.”

In response to all these problems, Monty began organizing a reform slate to run in the current election. He formed the slate from a loose community of stewards and activists from both the unions that merged to form 221. Now, the Reform 221 slate has 11 candidates for the 16 open positions.

Monty himself was a steward for 7 years, and was elected by his co-workers to be on the contract negotiating team twice.

The union election is being run by an outside firm that specializes in union elections. A mail ballot was sent out to all the members July 1. They must be returned and in the hands of the pollsters by July 21. In addition, from July 14 to the 21st, there are various polling sites around the County for members to cast their ballots. The tally will be made on the 21st.

Monty believes that if the turn-out is good, he and his slate have great chances of winning the election. But the members have experienced a couple of years of poor representation, plus there’s apathy, people not caring, not thinking that they can change things at their union.



“We have a better organization than the incumbents,” Monty said, “and they don’t have popular support.” Monty and his reformers want to change the make-up of the Executive Board, bring back proportional representation, “so every kind of worker and every kind of work is represented.”

Go to http://reformseiulocal221.blogspot.com/for the candidates and their positions.

This is exciting. My old friend could be the next president of Local 221. There is indeed a reform movement throughout SEIU, all over the country, of union members so upset with the way Andy Stern and the International has treated them, that they have organized themselves against that leadership. The reformers have formed something they call SMART - SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today. SMART-inspired insurgencies have won in various locals around the nation, including a couple of wins here in California.

Monty Kroopkin is working for a victory here in San Diego. It’s all about the turn-out, he tells me. “The tide is turning.” We shook hands and then Patty and I turned into the approaching night air. Read more...

Reformists Take Back SEIU 888 in Massachusetts!

From: "Dan Clawson"
Date: April 29, 2009 10:48:21 PM EDT
Subject: Fw: insurgent SEIU slate ousts trustee

In SEIU 888 in Massachusetts, formed about five years ago by the merger of
assorted public sector locals, Susanna Segat was appointed as the trustee.
She won her first election, but has just been ousted by an insurgent "Bring
Back Our Union" slate, which won by a more than 500 votes for president
(1801 to 1284, with slightly different votes in other races; the insurgents
won every seat they contested, but ran only 5 candidates for 18 Executive
Board seats).

About four years ago, 2500 members left this SEIU local and went into NEA
locals at the University of Massachusetts. The group had threatened to
decertify, but at the last minute SEIU voluntarily consented to the group
leaving, and cooperated with the process.

I've attached the election results for your interest. These are hot off the press; the count was today.

[see results at www.change888.org]

Read more...

SEIU President Andy Stern Has Crossed the Line

by Fred Ross, Jr.‚ May. 07‚ 2009

For the past ten years I have worked for SEIU, most recently leading a campaign to organize 9,000 healthcare workers at St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) hospitals across California. I was drawn to SEIU because of its commitment to social justice, including its inspiring Justice for Janitors campaign, its successful work on behalf of homecare workers, its leadership on immigrant rights, and its innovative strategies to hold corporations accountable. I have been an organizer since 1970, when I first started organizing with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW). I know a little bit about struggle and the terrible cost of internal union conflicts. I’ve been shot at by a supermarket security guard, knocked unconscious by a Coachella Valley grape grower, and survived a heated confrontation with the Salvadoran military.

This is why SEIU’s recent attacks on UNITE HERE have come as such a shock. I am deeply disappointed that SEIU president Andy Stern is financing and helping staff a disruptive attack on the leaders and members at UNITE HERE around the country — the worst instance of a union undermining another union since the Teamsters sought to undermine Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the late 1960s and 1970s. Last month I decided to leave SEIU, in part because of these attacks. [emphasis added]



Over the past six weeks, a number of longtime friends and allies from the UNITE HERE leadership have asked me to join them in their current struggle. Let me tell you why I am proud to support the courageous members and leaders of UNITE HERE.

UNITE HERE has made organizing non-union hotel, gaming and food service workers its top priority. Unionized workers in each of those industries have sacrificed to advance organizing.

In 2004, in San Francisco, Local 2 members went out on strike, were locked out for fifty-three days, and held up their contract for two years, costing the industry over $100 million, in order to maximize their bargaining power for workers in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Honolulu! The industry gave in and negotiated unprecedented card-check agreements in hotels in the Midwest and Southwest.

UNITE HERE is doing exactly what Change to Win set out to do: organize and use leverage along core industry lines. It is more than ironic that this union is being raided by SEIU, another Change to Win union.

This unjustified attack comes at a time when more than twenty thousand hotel workers are organizing campaigns to win new contracts in one of the worst economic downturns in decades. Sadly, Stern’s actions are also causing very serious collateral damage to the progressive movement.

First, they jeopardize the opportunity to reunify the divided national labor movement. Second, Stern’s war of choice has created deep divisions within the national immigrant rights movement. Third, at the local level, this conflict rips asunder decades-long relationships and progressive labor-community coalitions in cities across the country.

One of the most important lessons that I learned from my father, Fred Ross Sr., is that organizing is about relationships. My relationships with UNITE HERE leaders are deep, born of common struggle for worker justice, immigrant rights, farmworkers, peace with justice in Central America and, most recently, solidarity on behalf of the 9,000 unorganized SJHS healthcare workers fighting for free and fair union elections.

These relationships span thirty-six years, from the time I was a twenty-five year old organizer with Cesar Chavez and the UFW. I have probably gone to jail with hotel workers as often as with farmworkers.

Back in 1973, I recruited New York UNITE HERE leader Bill Granfield for the UFW. In turn, the legendary Miguel Contreras, whom I knew from the UFW, recruited me to join a picket line at the Parc 55 Hotel with members of HERE Local 2 during its citywide 1980 hotel strike. This was the first of many lively and militant street actions I would join with HERE members.

While I was going to law school at the University of San Francisco, my father and I helped a young reform leader, Sherri Chiesa, in her first election as an officer of HERE Local 2. In 1983, a young organizer from the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), Mike Casey, recruited me to do human billboarding with him on behalf of Ohio tomato workers who were boycotting Campbell’s Soup. In December 1989, when Neighbor to Neighbor launched an international boycott of Salvadoran coffee, Mike Casey and Tho Do, along with dozens of HERE members, joined us.

HERE was the first union in the country to recruit and welcome ex-UFW organizers into their ranks. UNITE HERE leaders learned valuable lessons from Cesar Chavez and the UFW. They were willing to make sacrifices and to undertake long, hard campaigns to win against tough odds. They have brought creative strategies to the struggle.

I have also long admired and respected UNITE HERE president John Wilhelm for his commitment, tenacity and strategic vision for building a democratic, vibrant and powerful union and revitalized labor movement.

I have longtime friends and allies on both sides of this conflict. SEIU and UNITE HERE have joined together countless times in mutual solidarity, supporting each other’s strikes and causes.

Ten years ago I recruited SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina, whom I have known for more than forty years, to join me, John Sweeney and hundreds of HERE members to engage in a massive sit-in in front of the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco. Several years ago, when I was organizing a city-wide contract campaign with SEIU Local 1877 President Mike Garcia, the members of HERE Local 2 were our most important labor ally. Three years ago, when I was first organizing support in Orange County with SEIU for the St. Joseph Health System campaign, the first labor leader to join us was the local UNITE HERE leader Ada Briceno.

SEIU and UNITE HERE have also been important strategic allies in the broader movement to fight for social and economic justice in this country. For example, Eliseo Medina, John Wilhelm and Maria Elena Durazo are critical allies in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform.

At this critical juncture, when we face both a major economic crisis and an historic opportunity to win universal healthcare, labor law reform, and comprehensive immigration reform, we must find a way to resolve this conflict based on mutual respect and solidarity. To win these epic legislative battles we will need unity and laser-like focus.

My hope is that SEIU will reclaim the best of its proud tradition and help build a more powerful and unified labor movement. Under Andy Stern’s leadership, SEIU made an enormous contribution to the election of President Obama and a progressive majority in Congress. Now he can make a major contribution by making peace with UNITE HERE.

Until he does, I will be standing in solidarity with the members of UNITE HERE.

Si se puede,
Fred Ross Jr.

Ross Jr.is a longtime labor and community organizer.

Read more...

SEIU president Andy Stern has been bashing Bank of America - the same bank that gave union big loan

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/04/30/2009-04-30_seiu_prez_bashing_bank_that_gave_union_big_loan.html

by Juan Gonzalez

Thursday, April 30th 2009, 4:00 AM

For the past few months, Andy Stern, president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, has railed against the government's $45 billion Bank of America bailout.

He has condemned the bank for lavish bonuses, for exploiting millions of mortgage and credit card customers, and for mistreating its low-level workers.

SEIU's Change to Win labor coalition even led a "Just Vote No" shareholder revolt Wednesday at the bank's annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., at which Ken Lewiswas ousted as bank chairman but kept on as CEO.

But guess what? Despite all the public fanfare, Stern has been quietly doing big business with Bank of America.

Last year, his union borrowed $10 million from the bank, SEIU's financial report shows. That loan brought the union's total debt with Bank of America to $87.7 million.

Ken Lewis, in other words, is SEIU's main creditor.

And that's not the only surprise in the report.

SEIU's other big lender last year - to the tune of $15 million - was Amalgamated Bank. That's the institution owned by UNITE HERE, a rival union that represents clothing, hotel, restaurant and laundry workers.

The Amalgamated loan was issued in September, an SEIU spokeswoman said. It arrived just before a power feud between UNITE HERE's two top leaders, Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, erupted into the nastiest labor split in years.

Once it became clear that Wilhelm had leadership support in that dispute, Raynor rushed to rewrite the bank's bylaws in December to assure himself control of Amalgamated's board of directors. He then ousted Wilhelm as a bank director.

Amalgamated is the only union-owned bank in America. It has $500 million in assets, and is often called the crown jewel of the labor movement.

By the time he ousted Wilhelm from the bank board, Raynor was openly working with Andy Stern to convince a third of UNITE HERE's nearly half-million members to secede and affiliate with SEIU.

The UNITE HERE breakaway group calls itself Workers United. Stern spoke at its founding meeting last month. SEIU bankrolled the secession effort and a suit aimed at getting control of Amalgamated.

"Raynor conspired to move money from Amalgamated Bank to SEIU for the purpose of attacking our union with money from our own bank," Wilhelm says.
Last week, UNITE HERE's leadership voted to start suspension proceedings against Raynor, who's still the union's president.

Raynor declined to talk about the Amalgamated Bank loan. SEIU spokeswomanRamona Oliver dismissed Wilhelm's claim.

"We do a lot of business ... with Amalgamated," Oliver said. "There nothing unusual about that $15 million loan."

So why would SEIU, which boasted nearly $250 million in dues income from members last year, even need to take out big loans from Bank of America and Amalgamated Bank? It turns out Stern's organization has been burning through cash.

Last year, the union spent $67 million on "political and lobbying" expenses - twice what it spent in 2007. It sold virtually all of its investments to generate additional cash.

Much of that money went to elect Barack Obama.

"We put all we had on the table to make sure that [Obama's victory] happened," Oliver said.

The union's latest financial report shows SEIU has only $33 million in net assets. That's an average of just $18 for each of its 1.8 million members. UNITE HERE, on the other hand, has more than $200 million - an average of about $568 per member.

SEIU's outstanding loans total $102 million. Its liabilities have skyrocketed to 82% of its assets.

Like the Wall Street banks Stern has rightly criticized, SEIU is spending beyond its means. His solution seems to be a hostile takeover of another union's membership, along with a plan to snatch up labor's only bank.

Ken Lewis should take survival lessons from Andy Stern.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com
Read more...