‘Richard the real’: Outspoken California union leader makes a show of his promises

Editor’s note: This is part of a special report on California state government’s largest union, SEIU Local 1000. Other stories include this piece on the new union president’s pledge to end its political spending, this story on a police visit to his home and our opinion editor’s interview with outgoing Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker.

Walk into Richard Louis Brown’s Oak Park two-bedroom home and you see bare white walls, a couple bullhorns sitting near his DVD collection, photography lights and a camera fixed on a tripod in his living room.

The new leader of SEIU Local 1000, California’s largest state employee union, lives simply, alone, and has what he needs to deliver his message. That includes big promises to improve workers’ pay and benefits and to upend union strategy by exiting politics entirely.

He also promises employees a good show.

“Get your popcorn and Patrón,” he said in a recent video recording. “This is gonna be the most entertaining situation, real-life situation, you’ve ever seen in your life. You’re going to see Richard Louis Brown take on the status quo.”

He started his new position June 30 overseeing the union that represents almost 100,000 state workers, taking over from former president Yvonne Walker, who had the post for 13 years. He beat her and three other candidates in May, mounting an energetic campaign with the help of 170 videos he posted to Facebook the last three years.

His videos were mostly monologues, and few were viewed by more than two or three dozen people. But they appealed to a subset of state workers who were frustrated with pay cuts Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature imposed on them last year and who felt they didn’t have a say in their union’s direction.

Campaigning was showtime, often with passionate messages:

“A lot of people are stuck on stupid.”

“The only way that Local 1000 can put you first is the fact that they must acknowledge that you are the only thing that matters.”

“I’ll put my life on the line for you.”

“My voters tell me every day, don’t you change … I’m on a divine mission, and you cannot break me.”

‘Richard the real’

People shouldn’t expect anything different now that he’s won the union presidency, Brown said.

“I’m supposed to be dignified — I don’t buy that,” he said. “Every day, I do that job and I’m president, I’m campaigning.”

He even has a nickname for himself, featured in his Twitter handle and on his website. He calls himself “Richard the real.”

Brown often dresses in a suit and tie for photos and official union proceedings, such as his swearing-in. He says blue and orange are his colors, representing the sun and the sky, and he encourages supporters to wear them rather than SEIU’s official colors of purple and orange.

He often signs emails and text messages with the numbers 7437, whose significance to him incorporates elements of the Bible, the beginning and end of human life, his family and Local 1000’s history.

“Those numbers came from God,” he said. “Seven days to start life, right. Seven days to end life. If you take the numbers 7437 and add them up, you get 21. That’s the year that I won, 21. If you take seven times four, you get 28, right. That’s the smallest number of days in the month. Add three to it. That’s the most number of days in the month,” he said.

He credits God with steering him to his current position after growing up with a single mother in Missouri, serving in the U.S. Air Force and finding a state job in California after time spent sleeping at friends’ houses, following his graduation from Arizona State University in 2007.

He entered California civil service when he got a job processing unemployment claims at the Employment Development Department in 2009, transferred to a Treasurer’s Office commission in 2011 and first ran for Local 1000 president in 2015.

Guarded about personal life

But as open as he is about his view about the union, Brown hesitates to share many details about his personal life.

He said he was an only child, and his mother a single mother.

“There are Black men who grew up with a mom and dad; then there are the rest of us,” Brown said. “I’m the rest of us.”

Many of his videos have been posted from a bulky laptop on a small table with stool-like chairs outside his kitchen.

He joked about his old laptop in a recent interview, saying he doesn’t spend much money. He said he learned to budget from his mother, who was schizophrenic and had to carefully apportion Social Security checks.

He said she was often taken advantage of financially and sometimes kicked out of homes, forcing the two to move from place to place. Brown said his mother’s experiences contribute to his obsessive interest in protecting state employees’ money.

“That’s why I’m so silly when it comes to money,” he said. “All those times people tricked her out of money, knew she was mentally ill, knew she was off.”

He said he served nearly 10 years in the Air Force, was discharged in 1996, and served three years in the branch’s reserves.

He left the military because he viewed the nation as too imperialistic, he said. He declined to provide copies of his discharge papers, and declined to name his final rank.

He enrolled at Arizona State University in 2000, paid his own tuition and graduated in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in finance. A registrar confirmed his graduation date and degree.

He was married and divorced. He declined to discuss that further.

Brown said his simple life will allow him to dedicate himself to the union.

“I ain’t got no personal life,” he said. “My work life is my personal life. This is my passion.”

He said he is a nondenominational Christian who prays every morning but doesn’t attend church, and sometimes goes out for drinks.

He sees significance and finds guidance in certain numbers, such as 7437.

In an interview, he added and multiplied the numbers in different combinations. He touched on his siblings, the number of California state worker unions, the tribes of Israel, the date in 1977 that former Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law allowing collective bargaining for public sector unions and the date in 2003 when SEIU Local 1000 officially split from a larger union representing other government workers.

“But I guess the most important thing is,” he said, “if you say, ‘well I’m not into all that religion stuff or spiritual stuff, well then just add them up and go play blackjack at the casino and get your money, and tell them Richard sent you.”

This story was originally published July 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.