Chula Vista city workers are now on their own.
After a tumultuous multi-year relationship, the Chula Vista Employees Association voted last week to decertify from the Service Employees International Union.
A total of 248 CVEA union members voted; 163 of them supporting decertification, 81 of them voting to remain with SEIU, and only four members wanting no union representation.
Decertification means city workers will break away from SEIU Local 221, drop the CVEA name and start fresh with a new name: Association of Chula Vista Employees.
“Essentially we have regained our autonomy,” said Kim Vander Bie, CVEA’s president from 2013-2016. “We would’ve kept the name CVEA, but SEIU insisted that they owned (the name) after we joined forces with them several years ago.”
An affiliation agreement between the two parties was started in 2009, but SEIU never filed the documentation with the city, Vander Bie said.
ACE will operate under its own bylaws and temporary officers so that it can officially separate itself from the SEIU-CVEA partnership. It has entered into a contract with labor representative Mike Powell, whose first order of business will be to negotiate a new contract between ACE employees and the city. The current contract expires June 30.
Powell also represents city of La Mesa employees, Otay Water District employees and has bargained on behalf of Escondido firefighters.
Vander Bie said most union members had expressed their concerns with SEIU dating back to her time as president.
“CVEA employees have been vocalizing their discontentment with SEIU for years, and the numbers speak for themselves — it was time for a change,” she said.
She cited issues such as poor representation by SEIU personnel and a breakdown of trust as major issues.
“SEIU promised more resources and better service when we became an agency shop, back in 2013, but they didn’t deliver,” she said. “They did put us on a schedule to annually raise our dues though.”
Agency shopped is a form of union security agreement where the employer may hire union or non-union workers, and employees need to join the union in order to remain employed. However, the non-union worker must pay a fee to cover collective bargaining costs.
Currently ACE is in the middle of a membership drive, signing up members under the new dues structure. Vander Bie said union dues with ACE will be $10 per pay period, or $260 annually, while SEIU charged union dues on a sliding scale, maxing out at about $60 a month.
“There’s a huge reduction in dues,” she said. “And all of the money will be controlled by ACE instead of being sent to SEIU.”
ACE will be led by temporary President Nicole Hobson, Vice President Wayne Zarling, Treasurer Esteban Barajas and Shelly Robillard as secretary. There will also be five temporary board members until an election is held in December.
CVEA is just the latest in a string of unions leaving SEIU. In the past decade, employee unions at the San Diego Community College District, the city of San Marcos and the city of La Mesa as well as the San Diego County Probation Officers Unit have all decertified from SEIU.
SEIU, one of the largest international unions in the nation, will still represent Chula Vista’s smaller union, Mid-Managers/Professionals Association.
SEIU Local 221 President David Garcias did not return phone messages seeking comment.
