Yvonne Walker, SEIU Local 1000’s president, faces election challenges from allies and foes

Longtime SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker faces at least four challengers in an upcoming union election, including a new bid from a slate of candidates who have been her allies.

Miguel Cordova, an education programs consultant who campaigned on a ticket with Walker in 2018, is running for president in the May 20 election.

He and two of his running mates sat at the bargaining table with Walker in the union’s most recent round of contract negotiations and have worked with her on other union initiatives in the last three years.

The other challengers are familiar rivals.

Sophia Perkins, an office technician who lost a run against Walker in 2018, tops a slate that includes two union vice presidents whom Walker has blocked from taking meaningful leadership roles since their election three years ago.

Tony Owens, an IT specialist who also was elected as a vice president in 2018, is campaigning on his own for the union presidency.

And Richard Brown, who ran against Walker in the last two elections, is again in the mix.

Candidates had to file nominating forms by Monday to appear on May 20 election ballots. Local 1000 spokesman Brian Nash said the union wouldn’t release any information on who has filed, and he wouldn’t confirm whether Walker is running. Other candidates confirmed their campaigns to The Sacramento Bee and said Walker is running.

The union is the state’s largest, representing about 100,000 employees in a broad range of jobs including custodians, office technicians, nurses, educators and inspectors. The union influences public spending through collective bargaining over pay and working conditions and contributes to political campaigns and ballot measures.

Walker, a former U.S. Marine and legal secretary, has been the union’s president since 2008. She led it through the Great Recession and difficult negotiations with former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown including a 2017 contract deal that was preceded by a strike threat.

Meanwhile, members are trickling out of the union. Local 1000’s rate of dues-paying members is the lowest among state employee unions at about 54%, according to a November analysis by The Bee, and has been declining amid infighting and the coronavirus pandemic, which has made it harder to recruit new members.

Walker’s opponents each talked about the need to reunite the union by listening to members, strengthening recruitment and representation training and refocusing the organization around its mission and purpose.

Walker did not respond to interview requests made through a spokesman and in an email.

Ballots are scheduled to be mailed out April 20 and must be returned by May 20. Winners will begin three-year terms on June 30.

Local 1000 represents nine groups of state workers, known as bargaining units. Each unit has a chairperson who represents the unit’s interests at the negotiating table during contract talks with representatives of the governor.

Each candidate for president is listed below in alphabetical order, along with their slates.

Richard Brown

Brown is an associate governmental program analyst with an advisory committee at the State Treasurer’s Office. He considers himself an outsider in the election.

He said he wants to end union political spending, create “and use” a strike fund, and allow everyone represented by Local 1000 — rather than just dues-paying members — to vote in union elections.

“We will bring the state to a standstill, and we’ll run Gavin Newsom out of office one way or another,” he said.

His website is createexcellence7437.com.

Miguel Cordova

Cordova is chairman of a unit representing educators, consultants and librarians. His running mates are two other unit chairwomen plus a woman who represents all union-covered employees in a swath of the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada.

They are Luisa Leuma, a licensed vocational nurse and chairwoman of a unit representing nurses and state social services workers; Kimberly Cowart, registered nurse and chairwoman of the unit representing registered nurses; and Tara Rooks, a licensed vocational nurse who is a District Labor Council president.

The officers have worked with Walker on contract negotiations and other union objectives over the last three years, but Cordova said divisions that came into view during the 2018 election must be addressed, and he feels his slate is the most qualified.

“The purpose of running is bigger than any of us,” he said of his slate’s campaign. “It’s bigger than any one position. It’s really about a movement, and it’s about working people and it’s got to be focused on that. And I feel like it’s so easy to be lost on all these other things that happened.”

The slate’s website is righttimerightchoice.com.

Tony Owens

Owens, a CalPERS IT specialist and the union’s vice president for bargaining, has been Walker’s loudest critic since the last election. He wrote a letter to the union’s board of directors in 2019 complaining he had been kept out of a unit-level bargaining meeting that he said was within his realm of responsibility.

He said he filed an internal disciplinary complaint against Walker over her decision to block him and the other vice presidents from accessing union records related to finances, membership data, coronavirus infections and other information they have said they need to do their jobs.

He said he also asked SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry to intervene, but she declined to do so.

“The people voted me in for a reason and I have to live up to that, so that’s what I’m trying to do,” he said.

His website is tonyowens.org.

Sophia Perkins

Perkins is a Department of Health Care Services program technician and former chairwoman of the Local 1000 unit representing office workers.

Her slate includes current secretary-treasurer Kevin Menager and vice president for organizing Anica Walls, along with David Jimenez, a disability evaluation analyst at the Department of Health Care Services. Perkins, Menager and Walls ran on a ticket together, along with Owens, in 2018 under the banner Members for Transparency and Change.

Her platform largely mirrors the priorities of her first run, including calls to enact term limits for union leaders and rescind stipends that SEIU awarded to its four executive leaders in 2016. She’s also calling to hire an outside firm to audit the union’s finances for the past 10 years and to post the union’s financial information online.

“We have to remember that this is actually a volunteer position that we’re elected into,” Perkins said. “Without election reform where there’s term limits, somebody can get in there and think it’s their business, their organization, when a labor union truly belongs to the members.”

The slate’s website is unitelocal1000.com.

Yvonne Walker

Walker since her election 13 years ago has cast the union as a force not only to improve the pay and working conditions of employees but also to help lift up working people. The union under her leadership has backed a Sacramento rent control measure, a ballot initiative to increase taxes for education and public safety and other initiatives.

Her opponents said her running mates are Randy Stan, a district labor council president; Irene Greene, an alternate vice chairwoman for a unit representing administrative and analytical workers; and Christina Calugcugan, a member leader.

Walker has pressed for the state to pay 100% of workers’ health care, and in the last round of contract talks negotiated a unique benefit in $260-per-month health insurance stipends. The union’s last contract also lifted all the union’s represented workers to $15 per hour.

Those two benefits were left intact through the pay cuts unions negotiated with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration last year amid grim budget projections.

This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.