Years ago, SEIU petitioned the state and won the ability to charge non-members for the benefits they enjoyed at the expense of paying members. These charges are known as “Fair Share” fees, and amount to ~98% of the Union dues members pay.
What this means is, because non-members get to enjoy the exact same benefits as paying members, SEIU was allowed to charge Fair Share Fees to non-members, yet we have heard of instances where SEIU will come to your office and tell you that you will have different representation than paying members if you quit the union or stop paying Fair Share fees. This is a totally false, and if you hear an SEIU representative tell you this please get their name and note the time and date, and document the gist of the conversation, then contact CPPEA so that we can voice our concerns about this in the court system.
In fact, according to several different laws, any Union that charges Fair Share Fees MUST represent non-members “… with the same vigor as full dues paying members of the Union… ” or the Union will lose the right to collect Fair Share Fees from all non-members in that organization. So you could think of this actually giving non-members more of an advantage in SEIU representation, because non-member representation is under greater scrutiny.
In the meantime consider this: SEIU is unresponsive to the majority of requests for representation from employees, and clearly most representation by SEIU is mediocre at best, and undermines the employee’s position in a grievance against the state, at worst.
So why would you want to pay SEIU for representation?
The answer most employees will give you is that: “mediocre representation is better than none at all”, showing that they are unaware of our ability to have anyone represent us against the State (i.e., your co-workers, a friend, or your own attorney, anyone at all).
You could even sign up for Group Legal services and pay $16/month for free legal, and have unbiased, dedicated representation, without any hidden agendas or any agendas at all, other than to represent you against the state. And you can use the same Group Legal services for other non-union legal issues as well.
That’s one option. There are others, which we will discuss at a later date. For now consider the following:
Per Government Code 3515.7 (d) also known as the Ralph C. Dills act:
d) “A Fair Share Fee provision in a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU, i.e., “Contract) that is in effect may be rescinded by a majority vote by all the employees in the (Bargaining) Unit (BU) covered by the memorandum of understanding, provided that:
(1) a request for the vote is supported by a petition containing the signatures of at least 30% of the employees in the unit;
(2) the vote is by a secret ballot; (3) the vote may be taken at any time during the memorandum of understanding. “
This ability to petition PERB for a vote to eliminate Fair Share Fees will ensure we have the funds to pay for our own representation or at least get SEIU’s attention and force them to understand that we pay them and that if we quit the Union they can’t still tap our paychecks for 98% of the same amount as full Union Dues.
Hmmm…. Zero representation = Zero Dues; Represent me successfully, and I continue to pay. So that in a “worst-case” scenario, if we are stuck with SEIU for another 3 years, we take back control whether we pay them or not depending upon SEIU performance. Sounds good to me, what about you?
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