Dispute at California’s largest state worker union lands in court, with request to oust president

An SEIU Local 1000 board member is asking a judge to remove the union’s elected president from power and to bar him from pursuing re-election, escalating a monthslong power struggle within an organization that represents 100,000 California state employees.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Sacramento County Superior Court, board member Bill Hall accused Local 1000 President Richard Louis Brown of misusing union money and of preventing the board from running the organization.

Hall alleges in the lawsuit that Brown violated union rules when he unilaterally decided to spend money on political campaigns, purchase software, pay off a $6 million loan on the union’s midtown Sacramento headquarters and give union employees an extra six days off — all without approval from the board and without disclosing details to them.

The legal filing asks a judge to intervene in an internal dispute that has been building since shortly after Brown took office at the end of June, following an election in which he unseated longtime union leader Yvonne Walker.

Brown did not immediately respond to a text or a phone call Friday morning, when the legal filing was posted online.

Brown promised to make big and unconventional changes at the organization, and during his campaign lashed out at his opponents and at Gov. Gavin Newsom. He has promised a 21% pay increase and has threatened to “shut down” the state of California by going on strike if the union reaches impasse in contract negotiations. He immediately clashed with many of the directors on the union’s 65-member board of directors.

In October, a slim majority of the board held a meeting in which votes were taken to strip Brown of his leadership powers and to transfer them to Hall, whom the group selected as board chairman.

Brown called the meeting illegitimate, citing union rules that assign the president the authority to call meetings. He has accused the board of trying to preserve the status quo at the organization and of trying to subvert the will of the union voters who elected him.

In the lawsuit, Hall asked the court to force Brown to abide by the meeting’s outcome along with removing him from office. The lawsuit also asks the court to forbid Local 1000 from paying for Brown’s legal defense.

Local 1000 is the largest union representing California state employees, with an annual budget of about $48 million. Its president is responsible for leading the union in contract negotiations with the governor’s office, presiding over union operations between board meetings and managing the union’s staff.

The lawsuit accused Brown of improperly spending $46,000 to support his preferred candidates in a CalPERS board election — Margaret Brown and Tiffany Emon-Moran — despite the board taking prior action to support candidates David Miller and Jose Luis Pacheco. Miller and Pacheco won the election.

The lawsuit said Brown didn’t have authority to unilaterally decide to pay off the building loan or to spend $25,000 on new software.

The suit says Brown improperly gave employees who work for Local 1000 six extra days off in 2021, costing the union about $300,000.

Brown hasn’t disclosed details of several other expenditures the board has asked about ranging from about $4,600 to about $16,000, according to the lawsuit.

The board hasn’t held a regular meeting since Brown’s election, and the board hasn’t passed a budget for 2022, according to the lawsuit. In an emergency meeting in December, Brown presented the board with a spending proposal he said had been prepared by a budget committee appointed by him, and described the budget committee’s work as confidential, departing from processes outlined in the union’s rules, according to the lawsuit.

In the budget meeting and other emergency or special meetings, Brown hasn’t followed union procedures, has muted board members and has insisted on “up or down” votes without debate, according to the lawsuit.

Brown’s actions constitute “repeated, ongoing and continuing breaches of his fiduciary duties, and fraudulent or dishonest acts or gross abuse of his authority or discretion with reference to Local 1000,” the lawsuit states.

Hall said Brown has begun to retaliate against some board members who voted against the spending proposal, including by launching recall campaigns against them.

“What’s at stake is the future of Local 1000 and working for the benefit of all the members where the board is engaged and involved,” Hall said.

This story was originally published January 14, 2022 at 12:58 PM.