

An autonomy deal already has been struck between leaders of Service Employees International Union Local 1000 and the umbrella California State Employees Association. The agreement, however, must be ratified by the CSEA's general council. A vote of the estimated 1,000 delegates gathered in San Jose is scheduled for Sunday or Monday.
The decision will be made at a critical juncture for SEIU 1000. The 87,000-member union of office workers, information technology specialists, program analysts, teachers, nurses, printers, technicians and others is facing a serious effort by some employees to stop paying their "fair-share" fees, a prospect that could cost the union nearly $12 million in revenues annually. Also on the horizon: negotiations on a contract that expires next year.
Neither the fair-share issue nor the contract played into SEIU 1000's peace pact with the CSEA. But with those and other battles looming in the near future, the agreement will sort out SEIU's relationship with CSEA and remove what had become a major distraction for the union's leadership.
"To say the least, there has been conflict within CSEA over the last 15 years, and I think this is going to largely resolve those issues," SEIU President Jim Hard said.
CSEA President J.J. Jelincic agreed, calling the new arrangement a compromise that will satisfy both parties as well as three other union affiliates that represent California State University employees, retired state workers and assorted supervisors.
"Everybody has indicated they can live with it," Jelincic said of the agreement. "Everybody has things they don't like, but there's nothing in there that kills anybody. Hopefully, we're making some progress."
By far the largest of the affiliates, SEIU 1000 has battled with CSEA's leaders for more than a decade. The dispute has largely resulted from CSEA's efforts to exert control over the internal operations and resources of a union now sitting on a political bank account of close to $2.5 million.
The agreement to resolve the tension between SEIU 1000 and CSEA is the product of more than 100 hours of negotiations dating to March and involving participants from the four affiliates as well as CSEA. In one key provision, CSEA has agreed to let the affiliates hire and fire their own employees and managers as they see fit. If the association board wanted to step in and the affiliate disagreed, the dispute would go to arbitration.
Another critical component would change the composition of the association's board of directors. The power shift would give the affiliates a majority of votes on the CSEA board.
Meanwhile, the deal would expand CSEA's ability to provide business services to smaller, unaffiliated labor organizations. Jelincic said the arrangement provides "a growth path for the association" that would have considerably less work to do.
Steve Smith, the one-time head of the Department of Industrial Relations under former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and a former political strategist for CSEA, said the attempt at reconciliation has "potential."
"I think they're trying to maintain the central unity and power of having a bigger, more involved membership, but at the same time, Local 1000 really needs to do their own thing," Smith said. "There's a balance that they're trying to arrive at."
The proposed deal is getting some close scrutiny at the San Jose convention. An insurgent group within CSEA called California State Employees United, which claims to have about 150 delegates on the council, is opposing the compromise.
"It takes the balance of power away from CSEA," said CSEU President Alex Hernandez, himself a member of the SEIU 1000 board of directors. "Ultimately, CSEA is at risk of being nonexistent. It gives SEIU more power to separate from CSEA. Then they'll pull away from everybody to do what they want, without anybody overlooking them."
Although CSEA and SEIU 1000 called the proposed deal a step toward labor peace, there is still considerable division within the organization. Along with the peace pact, delegates also will be voting this weekend on CSEA's leadership, and SEIU 1000 is backing a slate to replace Jelincic and his team.
"To us, the question is, who can implement the intent of these changes and get focused on the work of serving the members," Hard said.
Facing an opposing slate has made discussion on the new deal "more difficult," Jelincic said.
But "quite frankly, I'm more concerned with the good of the organization and the good of state employees than I am with staying in office," he added.
As for the "fair-share" fees, the state Public Employment Relations Board is preparing to hold a vote on whether a big chunk of SEIU 1000-represented workers have to keep paying them.
Fair-share fees are paid by state workers who don't want to join the union but still are required to have money deducted from their checks to pay for representation services provided by the labor organization.
Lyle Hintz of North Highlands petitioned the Public Employment Relations Board in August on behalf of fee payers in SEIU 1000's 43,000-member Unit One, mostly analysts and information technology workers, after SEIU 1000 increased its union dues by 50 percent earlier this year. Hintz could not be reached for comment Friday. A date has not yet been set for the vote.
Hernandez estimated that about 40 percent of the unit's members are fee payers instead of full-fledged members. Only the fee payers will be voting on whether to abolish the fair-share fees. If they're revoked, the union would be out nearly $1 million in revenues a month.
Hard said that if the fees are voted down, "it would be very damaging to Unit One workers and their chances of ever winning anything."
(sacbee.com)