SEIU Local 1000 directors to hold emergency meeting over proposals to strip president of power

The board of directors of California’s largest state worker union has scheduled an emergency meeting Saturday amid proposals to strip the organization’s president of power.

The union’s three elected vice presidents scheduled the meeting shortly after announcing on Monday that they were suspending Local 1000 President Richard Louis Brown. The trio also locked Brown out of the union’s R Street headquarters.

The three officers exercised an emergency provision in the union’s governing documents to suspend the president. In an explanation posted to the union’s website, they said Brown had failed to hold board meetings, interfered with vice presidents, jeopardized union assets, and taken other actions that threatened the union’s welfare.

Brown contended Monday that the officers took the action improperly, saying he suspended them before they suspended him. He said the action was an affront to the union members who elected him.

About 53,000 state employees pay dues to the union, which is the largest in the state workforce. In total the union represents 100,000 workers in a range of classifications from office assistant to prison nurse. It has a budget of about $47 million per year.

On Saturday’s agenda are proposed tweaks to the discipline process for a union president. The board will consider a change that would allow the appointment of a neutral hearing officer to weigh charges against the president, rather than allowing someone already in power to appoint a hearing officer.

Also on the agenda are proposals to dramatically change the way the union delegates leadership powers. Those proposals, which would strip leadership powers from the president and transfer them to a board-selected chairperson, were the subject of a controversial October meeting.

A slim majority of the union’s 65-member board attended the meeting, and a majority of those present voted to adopt the major changes.

Brown called that meeting illegitimate, citing union procedures that say the president must call meetings. He didn’t call the October meeting nor did he attend. Many of his supporters on the board boycotted the meeting.

The same proposed changes to the union’s leadership structure appear on this weekend’s agenda.

The two vice presidents who initiated Brown’s suspension have said they opposed the overhaul to the union’s governing rules.

Bill Hall, whom the October group selected as the board’s chairman, filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court last month seeking to force Brown to recognize the meeting’s result. The lawsuit also seeks to remove Brown from office and bar his re-election.

Hall’s lawsuit cites similar concerns to those raised by the vice presidents, saying he violated union rules by deciding 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 without approval from the board and without disclosing details to them.

This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 3:25 AM.