NH Corrections quit state union, join LEO union

[KBCraig]

My comments: good for them! The NH SEA is a disaster. When they voted to collect an "agency fee" (mandatory dues from non-members), I knew they'd soon be toast.


Union Leader - Corrections workers vote to leave union - Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008

Corrections workers vote to leave union

By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief

CONCORD – The State Employees Association will lose nearly 600 members after corrections department workers voted to leave the union.

The vote to leave SEA and join the New England Police Benevolent Association was 53-31 among corrections supervisors and 189-143 among officers and corporals.

Gary Smith, SEA president, is also a corrections worker. SEA has scheduled an emergency meeting for Jan. 31 to discuss the situation.

Smith was not available yesterday to comment on the election, a stinging blow to the union that this year negotiated a two-year contract for 10,000 state workers.

SEA spokesman Jay Ward said Smith will continue as president and as a dues-paying member of the union.

"Nothing in today's vote changes his status as a board member and president," Ward said.

The loss of membership will not end SEA's ability to collect an agency fee, Ward said. The fee is a percentage of union dues, meant to cover the cost of negotiating and enforcing the contract that benefits all eligible workers, members and non-members alike.

"Once the bell is rung, you can't unring it no matter what happens," Ward said. "Once you achieve that status, it doesn't end." Membership peaked in November 2006 when SEA hit about 70 percent of eligible members.

The SEA has been hit by a series of elections in small units that want to sever ties since its national affiliate, the Service Employees International Union, left the AFL-CIO.

Jerry Flynn, executive director of the NEPBA, said yesterday, "When they left the AFL-CIO, they opened up this door." NEPBA has won the rights to represent former SEA units at the state Fish and Game Department and the Highway Patrol Division of the Department of Safety. SEA has won elections that would have decertified units at the Department of Employment Security, the Office of Information Technology and the Insurance Department.

Flynn said that NEPBA will represent more than 700 law enforcement workers at Corrections, Highway and Fish and Game, and 3,000 law enforcement workers statewide. The union has other elections pending in Wolfeboro, Atkinson, Hampstead and Rochester.

Based in Lowell, Mass., the union plans to open an office in New Hampshire "very soon," Flynn said.

SEA filed an appeal of decisions that led to the corrections election earlier this week, said Donald Mitchell, executive director of the Public Employees Labor Relations Board. The state Supreme Court refused last week an SEA petition asking it to take jurisdiction over election issues.

It's unclear what effect the election will have on operations at the state's four prisons.

Corrections spokesman Jeffrey Lyons said the pending vote, "had been topic of conversation among staff over a period of time, but I'm not aware of any incidents that have resulted.

"We will facilitate in giving information when asked and in assisting in the transition from one group to the other," he said.

[jafish]

Man, I wish we could do that with AFGE and go with the FOP. Good for them.

[Movementarian]

Bravo!