Sunday, November 29, 2009

Local 99 Members Protest More Sell-Out Deals!

Last week, while SEIU staffers were pelting the Vice President of the Los Angeles teachers union with eggs, Bill Lloyd (President of SEIU Local 99) reportedly was negotiating a secret sell-out contract covering 1,200 employees of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Sources say that the affected members of Local 99, who were negotiating their first-ever contract, are "mad as hell" because Bill Lloyd negotiated and signed the contract without even informing the bargaining team.

And get this: Workers won't even get to vote on the contract because Lloyd agreed to merge the 1,200 employees into an existing unit of Local 99 members, which happens to have the worst of Local 99's contracts with LA Unified School District (Unit G).

Workers first learned about Lloyd's secret deal when Neneki Lee, Local 99's Staff Director, congratulated them about their new contract during a MOC meeting. Members of the bargaining team looked at each other and said, "What is she talking about?" Neneki said, "I thought you knew." I guess Lloyd hadn't figured out how to tell the bargaining committee that he had sold them out. Or maybe Neneki was just playing dumb.

The 1,200 workers are "Community Reps" who organize parents to get involved in their kids' education and also run the Parents' Centers at LA's public schools.

After learning about Lloyd's sell-out deal, workers confronted Local 99 officials. Two union officials (Linda Joseph and Maria Contreras) reportedly gave workers the run-around and then tried to blame the whole thing on staffers who no longer even work at the union.

Given his personal history, Bill Lloyd's top-down deal makes total sense. Andy Stern appointed Lloyd to run Local 99 after it was trusteed following a corruption scandal by a previous Stern appointee, Janett Humphries. Recently, Andy appointed Bill "Top-Down" Lloyd to be the president of the SEIU California State Council after the Stern's previous appointee, Annelle Grajeda, resigned because of her alleged involvement in steering tens of thousands of dollars of union members' dues money to her former boyfriend.

1 comment:

  1. Bill Lloyd seems to have a great and quite effective strategy for shooting himself and by extension SEIU in the foot.

    From the L.A.Times: "California Democratic Party chief says SEIU has threatened to cut off funding"

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/seiu-could-sever-ties-with-california-democratic-party.html

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