SEIU Local 1000 board could attempt to strip union president of powers this weekend

The board of directors of California’s largest state employee union is meeting this weekend to consider stripping the union’s elected president of most of his leadership powers.

The meeting, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at the California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento, represents another stage in a bitter power struggle within SEIU Local 1000 that has been escalating since President Richard Louis Brown took office June 30.

Brown campaigned on big pay and benefit promises for the 100,000 workers Local 1000 represents while pledging to abolish traditional union practices such as political advocacy and member-only voting.

After he took office, he ground some critical union activities to a halt, according to opponents on the union’s 65-member board.

In an August email to the board, board member William Hall said Brown had delayed the selection of representatives to bargain with the state, met with “right-to-work leaders” and created concerns that SEIU Local 1000 funds and resources were being misused.

The board’s list of complaints has grown since then, Theresa Taylor, a member of the Local 1000 board who is also member of the CalPERS Board of Administration, said Thursday.

“We’re in a position that there’s too much damage being caused,” Taylor said. “We feel like if we wait too long we won’t have an SEIU Local 1000.”

Recently, two former employees sued Brown and the union, alleging Brown harassed and wrongfully terminated them.

The proposal to be considered this weekend would transfer to the board many powers currently delegated to the union’s president, including leading contract negotiations, serving as the union’s spokesperson, presiding over board meetings, hiring and firing staff and making committee appointments.

The proposal would essentially make the president a regular board member, while giving the board the authority to elect a chairperson who would lead meetings and take on key functions when the board isn’t in session, said Taylor.

Brown has refused requests to call a meeting for the board to consider the proposal, so members of the board have gathered a quorum through chain emails, cc’ing Brown, in a way they say accords with the union’s governing policies and California law.

The board formally served Brown three times with a notice regarding the meeting, Taylor said. Taylor said a quorum of at least 35 members supports holding the meeting.

Brown maintains the meeting can’t be held if he doesn’t call it, and threatened in a letter last week to suspend board members involved.

In a text responding to an interview request Thursday, Brown called the planned meeting “illegal and improper.” He accused Taylor and Hall of disrespecting members’ vote and the board’s bylaws and policy file.

“This unauthorized meeting is the misleading and antagonistic attempt to offer a distraction to Local 1000-represented employees and to the public from the documented racist, homophobic, and sexist comments made by Theresa Taylor in August about me — so much for civility!” Brown, who is Black, said in the text.

Brown referenced a text Taylor sent to a union employee saying Brown could “suck a d---.”

Taylor said afterward that she should “probably not” have used the language she did, but disavowed any racial or homophobic intent.

Saturday’s meeting is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m., Taylor said. Some members plan to attend in person and some plan to attend virtually, but the meeting won’t be publicly livestreamed.

This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 5:25 AM.