Friday, May 19, 2017

SEIU Is Sued over Nevada Trusteeship


A supporter of SEIU Nevada’s former president has filed a lawsuit challenging SEIU International’s recent trusteeship of the local union, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal (Las Vegas Review-Journal, “Union member suing to restore local control of SEIU Nevada chapter,” May 16. 2017).

On Tuesday, Cherie Mancini (the union’s former president) appeared alongside ten supporters in a District courtroom seeking a court order to return control of the union to its recently disbanded executive board, according to the newspaper. 

The lawsuit is now headed to federal court.

Last month, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry removed Mancini and Sharon Kisling (SEIU Nevada’s former executive vice president) from their positions and then had two of her lieutenants conduct a nighttime meeting with SEIU Nevada’s remaining executive board members, who reportedly voted to ask Henry to place the union under an “emergency trusteeship.”

The lawyer suing SEIU International told the Review-Journal that the trusteeship is invalid because SEIU Nevada’s executive board members were led to believe they had no choice but vote for trusteeship.

The Review-Journal quotes Mancini as saying the following:
"There was a manufactured emergency by the removal of myself and the vice president at the same time. I think that the membership needs to determine whether there needs to be a trusteeship or not.”

The newspaper also reports that following the trusteeship, SEIU officials “fired the local’s chief financial officer Robert Clarke, communications director Dana Gentry and [Peter] Nguyen, the director of organizing and representation.”

Stay tuned.