SEANC-SEIU Packs Political Punch

While SEANC is now a union-affiliate, current law prohibits strikes and collective bargaining - tools usually associated with labor unions. Collective bargaining is the process of negotiation between representatives of workers (labor union officials) and management to determine the conditions of employment, including such things as compensation, fringe benefits, working hours, hiring practices, employee terminations, promotions, and seniority. Agreements reached by labor and management in this process of collective bargaining results in a legal contract to which both parties agree to abide.

In North Carolina, collective bargaining by public employees is governed by G.S. §95-98 which states that an agreement by a governmental entity in the state (state or local) is unlawful and shall have no effect. This statute was enacted in 1959, but SEANC hopes to have it repealed.

Mission
According to its mission statement, "SEANC is committed to protecting and enhancing the rights and benefits of current, retired and future state employees.”

The top priority of SEANC appears to be assuring that state employee salaries remain competitive with other states, the private sector and other government agencies. Other goals include the promotion of fringe benefits, including retirement benefits, longevity pay, health, accident, and life insurance. The group emphasizes high quality working conditions, attracting and retaining the best employees, encouraging high quality work performance, promoting the professionalism of all state employees and establishing adequate and fair standards for hiring, promoting, separating and awarding of performance-based pay. Some consideration is also given to providing adequate in-service training and educational opportunities for all state employees.

One interesting aspect of SEANC’s mission is a pledge to work for “an adequate budget for the efficient and progressive operations” of all state departments and agencies. It is not entirely clear how SEANC interprets the word “progressive” in this context, but it would seem to indicate that the association is generally inclined to support not only compensation increases for state employees, but also state government spending generally.

History
The origins of SEANC can be dated to the early 1940s when a group of individuals who worked in the state prison system and the highway system in western North Carolina began to see the need for some way to gain more influence with the General Assembly. They formed an unofficial association consisting of mostly prison and highway employees, and during 1945 and 1946, this association slowly took shape under the leadership of a highway engineer from Burnsville named W. B. Ferguson. The resulting North Carolina State Employees Association (NCSEA) scheduled its first convention for January 1947 at the Carolina Hotel in Raleigh.

This newly-minted association created various divisions within the organization and began to recruit state employees from department other than the prison and highway departments, mostly from the Employment Security Commission and the State Treasurer’s Office. Ferguson and other officials at NCSEA traveled the state, visiting state offices to build support for the association and recruit new members. At the end of 1946, NCSEA could claim approximately 3,600 members.

From the start, there were some tensions and differences of opinion between the prison and highway employees and employees from other departments. When the 1947 General Assembly passed a 20 percent across the board salary increase for highway and prison employees, tension was exacerbated. Soon thereafter, NCSEA dropped the name North Carolina State Employees Association and adopted one more appropriate for the majority of its membership, North Carolina State Highway Commission Employees Association (NCSHEA). Employees from other departments met at the Carolina Hotel on July 26, 1947 to form a new North Carolina State Employees Association, electing Mason E. Swearingen as its first president. It had 323 members.

NCSHEA changed its name again in 1957 to better mirror the group’s membership. It was now called the North Carolina State Highway and Prison Employees Association. In the mid-1950s both organizations (highway/prison employees and other department employees) could count about 6,000 members.

As a result of broadening its membership base and feeling on par with NCSEA in terms of representing all state employees, the NCSHEA in 1973 changed its name yet again, this time to the North Carolina State Government Employees Association (NCSGEA). While early efforts began to merge the two organizations (NCSEA & NCSGEA) were unsuccessful, the two associations finally agreed to combine efforts, emerging on July 1, 1984 as the State Employees of North Carolina (SENC). With the merger, the new association had achieved a membership of some 40,000.

In September 1984, SENC changed its name and became the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC). Today SEANC claims to be the South’s leading state employees’ association with 55,000 members.

While achieving some success over the years in influencing state government, SEANC has always felt it did not get the kind of respect in the General Assembly that its membership base deserved, especially when compared to the teachers’ association, the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE).

Background
SEANC launched a major effort to raise its profile and it political punch when it hired Dana Cope, a former legislative liaison for the NC Department of Labor, to be its executive director in March 2000. His tenure has proved controversial, but Cope has attempted to enhance its political program by encouraging members to increase grassroots activism as well as their political contributions. He also seeks to make the public service of educators more visible to the legislature and the news media.

SEANC’s Employees Political Action Committee, EMPAC, has grown substantially in recent years, rising from North Carolina's 276th largest PAC in 2004 to 68th in 2006. In 2005, SEANC started what it calls the “Member Action Team” (MAT), to enhance the ability of members to lobby public officials, to provide leadership for the organization, and to assist in recruiting new members. MAT activities include a lobby day at the General Assembly and grassroots lobbying efforts such as telephone phone calls and written communications to state lawmakers.

In May of 2008, SEANC officially voted to become an SEIU affiliate and now carries the name SEIU Local 2008. With this affiliation SEIU, both national and local, intends to flex its political muscle in North Carolina as never before. Under a five-year partnership approved by the SEANC Board of Governors in February 2004, SEANC agreed to provide the political infrastructure and the political workers and SEIU the money to push forward a common legislative agenda.

Chris Hayes of the Civitas Institute reports that prior to the 2004 elections, SEIU contributed $1.5 million to both political parties, making SEIU and SEANC major players in the political game. In the 2008 election cycle, the national SEIU is at the top of the list among organizations collecting and distributing political money, collecting $14.3 million in donations and disbursing $19 million to political candidates and committees, including those in North Carolina.

In 2008, the SEANC-sponsored EMPAC focused campaign support heavily on Democratic candidates, endorsing 26 Democratic candidates in the NC Senate and only 6 Republicans. For the NC House, endorsements were bestowed upon 59 Democrats and 14 Republicans. In statewide races, all EMPAC endorsed candidates are Democrats except for the State Auditor’s seat, in which they supported the incumbent, Republican Les Merritt.

According to the North Carolina Foundation for Research & Economic Education (NCFREE), SEIU spent $635,000 in North Carolina in 2006 in political advertising, public opinion polls, and get-out-the-vote efforts, more money than any business PAC in the state. In 2006, the organization FairJudge.net (supporting state Supreme Court candidates) received more than 10 percent of its total budget from the union, and state legislative candidates in 2004 received over $650,000 in contributions from SEIU. The SEIU money and money from the North Carolina Association of Educators allowed Democratic state candidates to heavily outspend the Republicans and helped Democrats solidify their control in the state legislature.

According to third quarter reporting for the 2008 elections, the SEIU federal PAC threw $1,810,569 into North Carolina's political campaigns this year.  And late reporting by SEANC indicates that the separate state workers' PAC gave $194,800, though the PAC failed to comply with deadlines for third quarter reporting (Red Clay Citizen, 11/19/08). Clearly the two combined had a dramatic impact on campaign coffers and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts statewide.

Programs

The 2008 legislative program of SEANC as determined by the 2007 Convention is listed below.

• Fully fund pay plan prior to considering other appropriations.
• Seek continuation of a fully paid health care benefit for qualified employees and retirees.
• Increase in retirement accrual rate to 2.0 to provide 60% of final compensation at retirement.
• SEANC endorses the repeal of G.S. §95-98 and supports the enactment of legislation to govern collective bargaining by North Carolina public employees. SEANC will seek to amend G.S. §143-3.3(g) and G.S. § 135-18.8 to delete language that voids dues deduction from payroll or retirement benefit if an employees' or retirees' association engages in collective bargaining.
• Seek promotional priority for career employees over those who have not yet earned career status.
• Amend retirement formula to use the two highest 12 month salary periods as averaging factor for retirement.
• Seek policy change to increase vacation time to 20 hours per month at 25 years of service.
• Seek policy change to ensure pay equity at agencies and universities on all issues.
• Support equal treatment of all members of TSERS regarding post-retirement re-employment.
• Permit conversion of annual leave in excess of 240 hours to sick leave upon separation from state employment.

Staff
The executive director of SEANC is Dana Cope.  SEANC is led by a 59-member Board of Governors, which includes the Executive Committee and 53 District chairpersons. The president of the Executive Committee is Linda Rouse Sutton. Tony Smith serves as first vice president, with Pat Reighard as second vice president.

There are seven major departments with the SEANC organization, including Administrative Services, Communications, Finance, Insurance, Legislative Affairs, Member Action, and North Carolinians for Affordable Health Care.

Assets
The 2005 IRS Form 990 filed under section 501(c), 527, or 4947 of the IRS Code shows that SEANC reported total revenues of $7,745,533 and net assets or fund balance at the end of the year at $2,790,055.

Summary
With less than three-percent of the workforce unionized, labor unions have never been a powerful force in North Carolina politics. Polls consistently show support for the state’s right-to-work law. No governor since Kerr Scott (1949-53) has openly supported repeal of the law. All that could change with the emergence of SEANC-SEIU as a political powerhouse. 

State government employees already enjoy a number of benefits that are unavailable to most private sector workers, and chief among them is the inability to be outsourced. Formal recognition of SEANC-SEIU as a union could result in a seat at the bargaining table for the powerful group during the already torturous crafting of the state budget.

The merger of SEANC and SEIU represents perhaps the most significant labor initiative in North Carolina since the 1930s. The combination of manpower and money is a powerful force in politics, and should be taken seriously. It could mark the beginning of a major power thrust for organized labor which would eventually end in repeal of the state’s right-to-work law. The first step for labor is to allow collective bargaining for public employees, but repeal of the right-to-work law is the ultimate objective.

North Carolinians who support the current right-to-work law should keep an eye on the SEANC-SEIU combination to see how it evolves. If it succeeds, it could usher in a new day for labor-management relations in North Carolina.

Updated November 14, 2008