Last week, approximately
900 corrections officers in Fresno County (Calif.) voted to leave SEIU Local 521 and join an independent
union, according to media reports.
The
corrections officers, who’ve been members of Local 521 for many years, are
employed at the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office and Probation Office. Here are
the vote totals from last week’s vote:
Fresno County Public Safety Association: 315
SEIU Local 521: 234
No Union: 18
Local 521 represents
approximately 31,000 public-sector workers in the central part of California.
Almost a
year ago, the same group of corrections officers also voted to leave Local 521. However, the
election results were subsequently tossed out after Local 521 filed legal challenges
because election officials inadvertently sent the mail-in ballots to voters some four days
early.
In a
separate development, more than 300 members of Local 521 near San Jose are planning
to decertify SEIU, according to the Morgan
Hill Times. The effort involves 314 classified school employees at the
Morgan Hill Unified School District.
The effort
is being led by the chapter president for Local 521, who said she resigned her
position at SEIU in order to lead the decertification effort. She and her co-workers
want to join a different union or form an independent union among themselves.
 |
| SEIU President Mary Kay Henry |
According to
the Morgan Hill Times, the former chapter president announced the effort at a
meeting of the school district’s board of trustees, where she said:
“We pay $130,000 per year in union dues to SEIU San Jose and feel we don’t get any representation in exchange. This has been coming for a while.”
In May of
2016, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry
appointed Local 521’s Chief Elected Officer (CEO) Luisa Blue to Henry's leadership team in D.C. Blue will now serve as
one of SEIU International’s seven Executive Vice Presidents, the highest elected position following SEIU's President and Secretary-Treasurer.
Makes
perfect sense, right? After all, it looks like CEO Blue has been doing a bang-up
job in California.
