CM Dumps SEIU!
By a wide margin of 131 to 102, the County of San Diego’s Construction, Maintenance, Operations and Repair Unit (CM) has voted to decertify SEIU and to certify the new union, The Association of San Diego County Employees (ASDCE). SEIU spent tens of thousands of dollars (members union dues money) and deployed scads of staffers and spin doctors to try to convince CM workers to stay in SEIU. With nearly 2 million members, however, SEIU was unable to defeat a little blue-collar union with only a couple hundred members.
The loss of the dues money from the CM unit may be the beginning of the end for SEIU Local 221. Staff at Local 221 will no doubt have to be cut back. Members already complain that they don’t see the staff at worksites for months at a time. Cutting back the staff will surely make that worse. Maybe SEIU International will “loan” Local 221 lots of money to prop up the Local budget and operations. But how will any loan ever get paid back without hurting the Local budget (and service to members) in some other way?
And it really is a downward spiral, ever since SEIU International forced the merger of 2 SEIU locals in 2007, to form Local 221. Ever since then, Local 221 has lost another whole bargaining unit of members, almost like clockwork, every year.
2007 – San Diego Community College District employees
2008 – City of La Mesa employees
2009 – County of San Diego probation officers and City of San Marcos employees
2011 – County of San Diego crafts workers
2013 – County of San Diego CM workers
These people all voted to form or join a new union. None of these people were anti-union.
Nationally, SEIU has been losing more members every year than the number of new members recruited. When a union gets too cozy with the Bosses (like, in bed) the members do figure it out. And, in America, nobody can be forced to be in a union they don’t want. We have elections to decide what union we want.
At Local 221, the SEIU contracts with the County of San Diego are all expired, as of June 27, 2013. That means that it is “open season” for all the other County workers to file petitions for elections to leave SEIU. Ordinarily, with some exceptions, people cannot file petitions for these representation elections while a union contract is in effect. Recent changes in the state law make it easier to get these elections. It used to take a petition of at least 50 percent of the members of the bargaining unit to get an election to switch from one union to another unon. The new law only requires a petition of 30 percent. Also, the group filing the petition used to have to pay substantial fees for the state run election services. Those fees have now been reduced or eliminated.
So, Loco 221 is eagerly waiting to see what the SEIU spin doctors will say now. How do you “spin” something that looks like a huge downward spiral into something that sounds upbeat? Hell, have you ever heard any SEIU official admit that they did anything wrong, incompetent, corrupt, stupid, anti-worker?
Loco 221 
Woot!
Now that the SEIU contract has expired, so has the limit on only being able to drop the union in June.
Anyone can submit documentation to drop the Union from now until there is a new valid contract, so now is a perfect time to drop SEIU like a bad habit.
Hey concerned citizen,
You are talking about individuals dropping their union membership, which is a different subject from whole bargaining units voting to switch unions. Loco 221 assumes you are basing your comment about “open season” on individual membership drops on the clause in the SEIU contracts that says: “Employees who are members of the Union on the effective date of this Agreement, or who thereafter join the Union, shall as a condition of continued employment, maintain their membership in the Union for the term of this Agreement.” The term of the Agreement has expired. Is this the legal basis of your comment?
yes. With the agreement being expired, withdrawing union membership is no longer limited to June.
I do understand that this is different from the entire CM unit switching, but for this individual action can be taken much quicker than having a de-cert election and can be done by individuals who may not have sufficient numbers (now) to get to a decert election in the immediate future.