City of L.A. Engineers Win Another Chance to Vote for SEIU

Nearly 1,500 City of Los Angeles professional employees will have the opportunity to vote to leave their current union and join SEIU in a run-off union decertification election starting in September, the City Employee Relations Board announced July 27.

The City’s announcement of an election schedule came less than a week after 22,000 LA City employees represented by SEIU and the Coalition of LA City Unions voted to approve a landmark agreement that will protect City services and avert layoffs and mandatory furloughs for members.   Thousands of City professional employees represented by the Engineers & Architects Association (EAA) have been taking steps since summer 2008 to switch to SEIU 721 and become part of the Coalition of LA City Unions. A decertification election took place earlier this spring, in which the nearly 500 employees in MOU 17, the City’s supervising engineering unit, chose to decertify EAA and join SEIU 721. The employees in MOU 8, the City’s professional engineering unit, showed clear favor to decertifying EAA and joining SEIU, but not in numbers great enough to avoid a run-off election. The mail-ballot election will be conducted by the City Clerk’s office. Ballots will mail on Friday, Sept. 18 and must be returned by Thursday, Oct. 8. They will be counted Friday, Oct. 9.   For more information go to UnitedforLA.org.

“I’m ecstatic. This gives us another opportunity to decertify from EAA and go to SEIU, a much more responsible union than what we currently have.” –Craig Kunesh, Engineering Geologist Associate III, City Bureau of Engineering.