Union Vote Expected to Settle Fight

An intensely personal battle among the leadership of Los Angeles County’s largest employee union came to a head Monday evening when thousands of rank-and-file members voted on who should head the Service Employees International Union, Local 660.

The vote was expected to settle--at least for the moment--an increasingly bitter and public power struggle between former union General Manager Gilbert Cedillo and leaders of the union’s board of directors. The vote count was expected to last several days.

Some board members, led by President Alejandro Stephens, have declared war on Cedillo and his controversial and at times militant leadership of the union local, which represents nearly half of the county government’s work force.

Cedillo, 42, was fired April 28 at a closed meeting of the board of directors for allegedly abusing his expense account and other transgressions. He counters that those expenses were incurred during last year’s budget crisis--and with the board’s blessing--when he bused thousands of union workers to the county Hall of Administration for protests.

Since his firing, Cedillo and his supporters in and out of the union have campaigned not only to deny the allegations, but to get him reinstated and change the union’s bylaws. They say Stephens and other union leaders are simply envious of the high visibility Cedillo gained from the mostly successful campaign to save county employee jobs last summer.

In a raucous closed-door meeting Monday night, the union rank and file voted on whether they want to return Cedillo as their general manager. If he is reinstated, the vote would also give him far more authority and autonomy, and what had been an appointed position would become an elected one with more latitude over day-to-day operations and expenses.

Both sides indicated they would file court challenges if they lost. Thousands of votes were cast by proxy, with another 400 or so union members jamming into the vast Patriotic Hall building near the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Cedillo says the vote is simply an issue of democracy. In an interview Monday, he said he wants the rank and file to decide who should lead them at a time when the union needs to play a pivotal role in the downsizing--and reshaping--of Los Angeles County government.

“If they don’t support me, fine. So be it,” Cedillo said between last-minute get-out-the-vote stops at union sites throughout the county. “But it has to be a true expression of the membership, and that has not happened. The union has used a lot of tactics, some of them illegal, to deny us access to our union members.”

Four years ago, Cedillo was fired by the union board. He was later reinstated after the union’s international leadership temporarily took over the union citing a lack of democracy and gave the members a chance to decide for themselves who they wanted.

But this time, Cedillo has gone too far in refusing to heed their directives, according to Stephens and other union leaders united in an ad hoc group known as New Voices for Members Empowerment. They said Cedillo is disguising--in a seemingly innocent campaign to get his old job back--an effort to wield far more power than he ever had.

“Don’t let Gilbert Cedillo ruin our Union!” the group says in one widely circulated flier. “Cedillo’s scam [is] totally self-serving and . . . absolutely illegal under state and federal laws designed to protect our organization from corrupt power bosses like him.”

Cedillo denies that, saying he only wants to be able to run the union without continuous meddling from a contentious board of more than 30 directors, elected from the union’s rank and file. Union solidarity is especially important now that the county supervisors are once again looking to cut services and jobs in an effort to balance their budget before the next fiscal year begins July 1, according to both Cedillo and Stephens.

“The full force of this organization should be focused on saving jobs and influencing the political priorities of the county,” Cedillo said. “Those will be my priorities when I go back.”

Stephens said the law is clear: “We on the board were elected to make these decisions.” Leaders of the international union said Monday that they see no reason to once again step into the middle of the union dispute.

David Rolf, Western region political director of SEIU, said nearly every union local has a system in which the rank and file elects the board, which then appoints a general manager. Asked whether the international body felt Cedillo was overstepping his authority by seeking to change the bylaws, Rolf and other union officials said they are leaving it up to the local and its membership.

“I’ve dealt with both sides and always had a terrific relationship with both of them,” added Dan Lucas, the union’s international political director in Washington. “I would never get involved in anything like this; it is an internal union matter. They will settle it.”

Monday’s vote was the result of a petition drive by Cedillo supporters. Cedillo had tried for a mail-in ballot so members would not have to travel downtown from all corners of the county but was told the union lacked the $50,000 for such a balloting process. He says the union has spent far more than that to thwart his election campaign, and he pledged to appeal to the union international if he loses the election.

Over the weekend, Cedillo and his supporters went from one county facility to another in search of supporters to submit their votes by proxy. Stephens and his supporters also were active.