Press: 1,100 members planning to quit SEIU local union in California

One-fifth of the members of SEIU Local 221 are attempting to decertify the San Diego-based union, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune (“More than 1,000 members planning to quit county's largest union,” September 1, 2017).

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Three groups with at least 1,100 employees among them are attempting to decertify from Service Employees International 221, a formal process of leaving the union.

They initiated the move after becoming frustrated with how SEIU has managed ongoing negotiations with the county, while their colleagues in other unions have managed to ink new agreements with raises.

“It’s been a farce from the get-go,” Bob Grable, a former member of SEIU’s bargaining team who sat through negotiations for three earlier contracts. He’s trying to leave that union and form a new group for some of the county’s employees.

“We started negotiations with nothing, no proposals, no negotiation, nothing. This ship sunk at the dock at day-one” said Grable, a vehicle fleet support specialist.

According to the Union-Tribune, three separate groups of San Diego County employees are attempting to leave SEIU Local 221 so they can join other unions: (1) 1,000 urban planners, psychiatrists and epidemiologists; (2) 116 dispatchers in the Sheriff’s Department; and (2) an unknown number of paralegals who work for the district attorney, public defender and the Office of Child Support.

In total, SEIU Local 221 has roughly 5,600 dues-paying members.

Soon after the news hit the press, leaders of SEIU Local 221 rushed to finish contract negotiations with San Diego County officials in order to close the window on workers’ decertification efforts.

The three groups of workers are just the latest among a long list who’ve bolted SEIU Local 221. For example, in May, nearly 400 employees of the City of Chula Vista voted to leave Local 221 and form an independent union after citing frustrations with the quality of SEIU’s support of its members.

In June of 2016, a group of 479 school employees voted to decertify SEIU Local 221 and join an independent union called the Poway School Employees Association (PSEA).

Altogether, in recent years more than eight other bargaining units have decertified the union.

Workers: "Why We Left SEIU"

More details are emerging about why 400 city workers in San Diego last month voted to leave SEIU Local 221 and form an independent union called the Association of Chula Vista Employees.

The details are captured in an article published this week in San Diego’s largest daily newspaper (San Diego Union-Tribune, “Split by Chula Vista employees is the latest rift in local labor unions,” June 5, 2017). Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A group of the city’s employees — librarians, planners, forensic investigators and others — voted last month to leave Service Employees International Union, Local 221, and to represent themselves in a new organization…

Many Chula Vista employees had been long-frustrated with the quality of advocacy SEIU had provided on their behalf, said Nicole Hobson, the president of the newly formed Association of Chula Vista Employees.

“This decision was kind of a long time coming,” she said “Lack of services, high dues, they have high employee turnaround, they give us inexperienced representatives,” she said…

The loss of employees at the county’s second-largest city from the largest public-sector union is the most recent turbulence in the organized labor in the county, as well as for SEIU. Last year nearly 500 Poway Unified School District Employees left SEIU in order to represent themselves, as did at least seven other employee groups in the last decade, including employees at the San Diego Community College District, City of La Mesa, as well as some county workers…

Kim Vander Bie, another officer in the new Chula Vista union, said that SEIU wasn’t good at communicating with its members, and they didn’t learn about plans to leave the Labor Council until a decision had already been made.

“I personally didn’t give it a lot of thought because it wasn’t presented to us,” she said. “They didn’t communicate with us very well. We’d find out after the fact, or too late.”

Employees dues have been cut in half since leaving SEIU, and the new city employee union is about to begin contract negotiations with city management. With more independence, they’re planning to get more involved in local elections as they build their treasury, Vander Bie said.

“I hope that future employees will be very cautious before getting into that type of relationship,” she said. “I’m not against unions, which is why I am very active with our new union, but some unions are better than others. Some have better leadership with others. We just had a bad experience.”

San Diego Workers Vote to Decertify SEIU

Last week, 386 municipal workers in the City of Chula Vista (the 2nd largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area) voted by more than a two-to-one margin to leave SEIU Local 221 and instead join an independent union.

The final tally on the vote, which was conducted by California’s Public Employment Relations Board, was:

Association of Chula Vista Employees (ACE):  163
SEIU Local 221:  81
No Union:  4

Why did workers vote to decertify SEIU?

An article in a local newspaper (The Star News, “Muni union members consider a break,” April 1, 2017) offers some insight:

Esteban Barajas, a Chula Vista public works employee and a full dues paying member with SEIU, said he wants to see his union break away from SEIU because he said they do not properly represent Chula Vista Employees when they are needed, and are only around every three years during contract negotiations and he said SEIU does not give CVEA a fair share of money.  He said SEIU receives about $250,000 annually as part of CVEA’s union dues.

“We’re supposed to be on the top of the food chain so why are they getting $250,000 and we are over here living off of top ramen soups?”

Workers at the City of Chula Vista are just the latest group to decertify SEIU Local 221. In recent years, at least eight other bargaining units have bolted Loco 221 including…

1) San Diego Community College District

2) City of San Marcos

3) City of La Mesa

4) San Diego County’s Probation Officers Unit

5) San Diego County’s Crafts Unit

6) San Diego Regional Center

7) San Diego County’s Construction, Maintenance, Operations and Repair Unit

8) Poway Unified School District’s Operations Support Service Unit

500 California Workers Vote to Leave SEIU, Join Independent Union

A group of 479 school employees in San Diego, California has voted to decertify SEIU Local 221 and join an independent union called the Poway School Employees Association (PSEA).

On June 10, the California Public Employment Relations Board tallied workers’ ballots and announced the following results:

PSEA:  295 votes
SEIU Local 221: 10 votes
No Union: 1 vote

The 479 workers include cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, groundskeepers, warehouse workers, skilled trades workers, and others at the Poway Unified School District, which is the third-largest school district in the county. Poway USD, located in northern San Diego County, operates 38 schools serving 35,500 students, according to its website.

What was behind the landslide vote, in which 96% voted to dump SEIU?  

In a press release, the PSEA offers a hint about why the president of SEIU’s former chapter at the district joined other rank-and-file leaders to remove SEIU.

The PSEA describes the election results as…

a resounding rebuke of SEIU, which has represented these 479 employees since 1988. In March of this year, the former leadership of the SEIU chapter at PUSD led the effort to unite their blue-collar members with PSEA, an independent union which has represented the 1,500 white-collar classified employees at PUSD since 2010. The former SEIU chapter leaders complained of unresponsive SEIU representatives, high SEIU dues, and a lack of resources, training and assistance.

Last week’s decertification election is just the latest in a string of losses for SEIU Local 221. In recent years, at least eight bargaining units have bolted Local 221 including…

1) San Diego Community College District
2) City of San Marcos
3) City of La Mesa
4) San Diego County’s Probation Officers Unit
5) San Diego County’s Crafts Unit
6) San Diego Regional Center
7) San Diego County’s Construction, Maintenance, Operations and Repair Unit8) Poway Unified School District’s Operations Support Service Unit

Here’s the PSEAS’s press release about last week’s election at Poway USD:

  San Diego (Calif.) School Employees Decertify SEIU Local 221 and Join Independent Union June 10, 2016

SEIU Local 221 Is Forced into Do-Over after Workers Protest "Starbucks" Election

This week, SEIU Local 221 in San Diego is conducting another 'do-over' of an internal officer election after union members filed protests with the Purple Palace and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.

In the first election, which took place last December, only 41 of the 5,000 members of the County of San Diego Chapter actually filled out a ballot. (That's less than one percent.)

Why?

SEIU refused to send mail-in ballots to its members. Instead, SEIU set up voting booths at “5 weird Starbucks locations" during just one day of voting for 5,000 workers employed at 200 county worksites, according to union members.

Super fair, right?

For the do-over election, which began April 22nd, SEIU is continuing to refuse to send out mail-in ballots to its members. This time, there'll be voting booths at 22 County worksites during five days of voting.

However, workers report that SEIU has pulled another last-minute trick from its purple hat in an effort to get its hand-picked candidates elected to office.

SEIU has censored the online statements of candidates who are critical of SEIU's leaders. These statements are posted on the union's website so voters can understand who/what they're voting for. Here's the phrase that SEIU deleted from candidates' statements:

"A reform movement has started in SEIU (see SMART at reformseiu.com)."

So... workers quickly filed another round of protests. Meanwhile, SEIU is conducting balloting at the county worksites.

Looks like the United Nations should run SEIU's elections from here on out.

Here's a link to "Reform 221," a group of rank-and-file union members that filed the original protest against SEIU's "Starbucks" election. 

More California Workers to Bolt SEIU

Last month, a group of approximately 400 public-sector workers in Southern California petitioned to dump SEIU Local 721 in order to create their own independent union. 

The workers are employed by the Coachella Valley Water District, which provides water to more than 110,000 homes, farms and businesses in Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties.

The decertification effort is backed by the workers’ elected board, according to a July newsletter (see below). More than 50 percent of the workers had already signed the decertification petition by early July.

According to  newsletter, the water district workers want to form an independent union with the help of City Employees Associates, which represents 105 independent associations of public-sector workers across California.

The news was reported by a dirt-digging blogsite called “Loco 221,” which offers news and commentary about SEIU Local 221 in San Diego.

So why are so many of SEIU’s members running for the exit signs?

Here’s what the leader of a separate group of already-departed SEIU members says. "Loco 221" published an interview with the president of the La Mesa City Employees Association, which earlier decertified SEIU Local 221 to form their own independent union.

Just before the decertification of SEIU we had only 22% of employees who were SEIU members and most of them didn’t know why they were hanging on.  Employees were tired of SEIU people confronting them at their workstation and at home to join SEIU.  Employees were adamant that they would not join an organization that took a lot of their money and they had no say of where that money went.  Once we started our decertification process, we wanted to send a clear message to SEIU, every employee dropped out except the President and Treasurer.  We stayed only so we could control the bank account which had only a few hundred dollars left.  That last year I met with [former local 221 president] Sharon-Frances Moore 4 times insisting we needed change.  We needed  a rep that returned phone calls and responded to e-mails.  We needed a rep that did not “call in sick” to a bargaining meeting but forgot to call us and tell us he would not be there.  We needed a rep who would show up to her first ever Skelley hearing and NOT not know what to say – I could go on.  Sharon-Frances Moore made a lot of promises and it never got any better.

For readers who don’t remember Sharon-Frances Moore… Andy Stern met her at a cocktail party in New York City and then hand-picked her to run SEIU Local 221 even though her closest previous union experience was working for the Girl Scouts!

Moore crashed and burned in spectacular SEIU fashion, including an exorbitant salary, a fraudulent union election that was overturned by the U.S. Department of Labor, a civil lawsuit, and a six-figure severance package paid by SEIU’s members!

   Coachella Valley Water District General Employees Association Files to Decertify SEIU and Form Independent...

More California Workers Dump SEIU

A group of approximately 270 county workers in San Diego has voted to decertify SEIU Local 221 and join an independent union called the Association of San Diego County Employees (ASCDE).

The workers -- who make up the County of San Diego’s “Construction, Maintenance, Operations and Repair Unit” -- voted by a margin of 131 to 102 to switch unions, according to a local blogsite called “Loco 221.” The ASCDE was formed by a breakaway group of SEIU members in 2011.

In an earlier post, Tasty reported on these workers’ effort to bolt from SEIU, including one worker’s  comment about SEIU’s leaders:

They treat us like mushrooms. You know, keep us in the dark and feed us sh*t.

Workers' recent vote is just the latest in string of decertifications by Local 221’s members.. which apparently has Eliseo Medina nervously consulting his PR people.

Medina, who currently serves as SEIU’s Secretary-Treasurer, famously served as the Trustee of the San Diego union, where he claims to have singlehandedly rebuilt the union and steered it onto a path of glorious and unending success. Later, in 2010, SEIU’s Andy Stern appointed Medina to serve as Stern’s “personal representative” “to assist Local 221 in meeting its internal needs.” 

By all accounts, Medina has done a helluva job in San Diego! In recent years, SEIU Local 221 has lost more than 20% of its membership… and its revenues have plunged by 35%.

Way to go, Eliseo!

More info is available here and here. 

More California Workers to Bolt SEIU

This just in: a unit of 272 county workers has filed for an election to decertify SEIU Local 221 in San Diego, California so they can join an independent union called the Association of San Diego County Employees (ASDCE). The independent union was founded last year by another breakaway group of SEIU members.

Below, Tasty has posted the county’s official notice about the decert filing, dated November 21.

So what’s causing workers to rush for the exit signs? Here’s what one member of Local 221 says about SEIU’s leaders:

They treat us like "mushrooms." You know, keep us in the dark and feed us sh*t.

He goes on to describe the sell-out contracts negotiated by SEIU that “have left us with less money in our pockets and less respect from our employers.” And then there are “the bloated paychecks of the local president” …not to mention the six-figure severance packages and consulting gigs that allow SEIU's departing officials to line their pockets.

In recent years, at least six bargaining units have decertified SEIU Local 221. A member of Local 221 describes some of these departures by county workers:

In 2009 the Probation Officers (PO) Unit did it, and voted to form their own new union, the San Diego County Probation Officers Association (SDCPOA). That was about 900 members that SEIU lost then. In 2011 the Crafts (CR) Unit did it, and voted to form their own new union, the Association of San Diego County Employees (ASDCE)… This time, it's the CM Unit (Construction, Maintenance and Repair)…
 This is a huge vote of "NO CONFIDENCE" in the way SEIU Local 221 is being run, no matter how this all turns out! And for that, we can all thank SEIU Local 221 President David Garcias and his mentor, former President Eric Banks, and his former boss, former President Sharon-Frances Moore and former SEIU International President Andy Stern (who appointed her to run our union in 2007). SEIU Local 221, since it was chartered in 2007, has not had a single president that had even a clue about how to empower the union members to democratically run our own union.

And that’s not all. As Tasty recently reported, the US Department of Labor is conducting its second investigation in just three years over alleged vote fraud during the Local 221's recent internal officer elections. Stay tuned!
Notice of Decertification Petition by members of SEIU Local 221 in San Diego, California 11-21-12

Feds Investigate SEIU Local 221... Again

As attention in the U.S. focuses on Tuesday’s national elections, workers report that another one of SEIU’s own elections is under investigation by federal officials for alleged vote rigging.

A member of SEIU Local 221-- which represents public-sector workers in San Diego, California -- writes:

On October 30, 2012, the federal Department of Labor began an investigation into possible illegal union election campaign activity at SEIU Local 221. The union conducted elections for the positions of local president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and twelve other executive board seats on July 10, 2012. A legal complaint was filed contesting the election results.

So what’s going on?

Well, during the elections, the Purple Palace’s favored candidate for president -- David Garcias -- eked out a narrow victory by fewer than 250 votes.

Workers allege that SEIU committed multiple violations during the election, including these:  

First, they say SEIU sent out 777 “extra” ballots to “voters.” Even though the union had just 6,009 members who were eligible to vote, SEIU officials sent out 6,786 ballots. Who got the “extra” ballots? That’s the big question.

Secondly, workers allege that a posse of SEIU officials campaigned for Garcias while being paid by SEIU. It’s strictly illegal for SEIU officials to use members’ dues money to support one slate of candidates vs. another. The posse of allegedly illegal campaigners includes Eric Banks (the union’s former president), Barbara Mohondro (Banks’s office manager), Kirsten Clemens (Banks’s chief of staff) and executive board member Liliana Camarena.

For those who don’t know him, Banks is the guy who fell for this hilarious prank during the giant Kaiser election in 2010. Since stepping down as president of Local 221, Banks has signed a consulting gig with Local 221. His new title? “Strategic Adviser” to SEIU Local 221. Hourly billing rate? Unknown.

 

If the feds overturn Local 221’s recent elections, it will be the second time it has done so in recent years. According to member at SEIU Local 221:  

A similar complaint regarding the 2009 union elections resulted in the government throwing out the election and forcing the union to run a "do-over" election in 2010.

Below, Tasty posted the 2010 letter from the DOL announcing the overturning of election results at Local 221. 

Altogether, it sounds like SEIU is keeping the U.S. Department of Labor plenty busy -- earlier on, Tasty covered the news that DOL officials are apparently investigating alleged election violations at SEIU Local 721 in Los Angeles. Stay tuned!

US Department of Labor's Out-of-Court Settlement with SEIU regarding Misconduct during Elections at SEIU Lo...