Tasty hears that Mary Kay Henry recently reshuffled the deck chairs on the Titanic by reassigning top SEIU DC staffers to new duties. One SEIU topdog who got a serious demotion is Dennis Rivera, the former president of 350,000-member 1199NY. Back in 2008, SEIU appointed Rivera as the President of "SEIU Healthcare," which SEIU described as its "new one million member union." Well, not any more. A recent memo from Mary Kay to SEIU's International Executive Board announces that Dennis is now a "Senior Policy Adviser" to Mary Kay. In fact, Tasty hears he's now reporting to SEIU's newly named Organizing Director, Scott Courtney. Oh, and who took Scott's job running SEIU healthcare's field work? His girlfriend, Joyce Moscato!
Dennis's standing has really taken a plunge in recent years. Dennis famously led SEIU's outrageously unprincipled (and totally unsuccessful) attack on the 42,000-member Puerto Rican Teachers Union in 2008.
So why is Dennis in Mary Kay's doghouse? Tasty wonders if it's because he backed out of being a trustee of UHW in 2009. In a total FAIL right after the trusteeship, SEIU sent out correspondence on trusteeship letterhead listing Dennis as the trustee.
Sounds like Mary Kay is still upset that Dennis wouldn't do a tour of duty in Californiraq. In SEIU-land, if you refuse to sign the loyalty oath, you're either out the door or, if your act of disloyalty isn't too beg, you're relegated to the doghouse.
