Reformers win big in California State Employees Association

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The Caucus for a Democratic Union dominated the November convention of the California State Employees Association, ousted the incumbent administration, and elected all the incoming state officers. The CSEA is the largest local on the West Coast. Its Civil Service Division, with 90,000 members, is the third largest affiliate of the SEIU. In winning the election and a majority of the 1052 convention delegates, rank and file volunteers from the 600-member caucus campaigned vigorously in 55 chapter officer and delegate elections and thirteen regional elections for CSEA Board of Directors.

The sweeping victory of the reform caucus culminates a bitter battle for democracy that began almost 14 years ago when five members of the CSEA negotiating committee campaigned against a contract which the state CSEA leadership was pushing for adoption. They were removed from the committee and suspended from membership. That's when they launched the CDU. From that point on the state leadership continued an unrelenting campaign to get rid of these critics. The state leaders filed charges against them, seeking their lifetime suspension, but the state Public Employment Relations Board rebuffed the move.

In 1996, having narrowly escaped expulsion, the CDU reformers won control of the Civil Service Division. Jim Hard and Cathy Hackett were elected to the two top positions.

The statewide CSEA, an oddly constituted union, is composed of four separate divisions. Only the Civil Service Division is affiliated to the Service Employees International Union as SEIU Local 1000. With its 90,000 members, the division could command a majority of the statewide membership of 140,000 in all four divisions, but a gerrymandered system of organization kept the old state officials in control, and they used that control over the years to try to suppress the reformers, including a failed effort to put the division under trusteeship. The reform leaders of the division decided to register the division under state law as a non-profit organization, a move that would provide protection for their democratic rights not easily enforceable otherwise. Their move was resisted by the state organization, but after an extended battle in state court, the CDU was successful. With their rights now guaranteed, the CDU went on to statewide victory.

Joseph Jelincic, the new CSEA state president was one of the founders of the Caucus for a Democratic Union.

See also "Many Voices, One Union": http://www.csea4us.com/