Employee union picks candidates

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 | 9:29 a.m.

The union representing thousands of Clark County government employees and thousands more workers in the county's private-sector hospitals this week released its list of endorsements for the upcoming election.

The Service Employees International Local 1107 released a full slate of endorsements for this year's elections for Congress, state Senate and Assembly and the courts.

The SEIU's focus, though, is on four of the five Clark County Commission seats up for grabs this fall.

The union did not make an endorsement in Commission District D, where incumbent Yvonne Atkinson Gates faces a challenge from Democratic state Sen. Joe Neal.

The only incumbent to get the nod from the union, which with more than 10,000 members is Clark County's second-largest after the Culinary Union, was Bruce Woodbury in District A. Woodbury also was a standout Republican on the endorsement list.

Union officials gave Woodbury high marks in a recent County Commission "report card" for sticking up for the union in the ongoing clash over wages and benefits.

The other three candidates to win the union's support are all Democrats seeking to knock off incumbents. In District B, now held by Mary Kincaid-Chauncey, Assemblyman Tom Collins received the union endorsement. The union endorsed Deputy District Attorney Jerry Tao in Commission District C, held by Republican Chip Maxfield.

The union endorsed Assemblyman David Goldwater in District F, now held by newly appointed Republican Lynette Boggs McDonald.

"The focus is on the County Commission," said the local's executive director, Jane McAlevey. "What happens on the County Commission is tremendously important to our members."

The union and county management have been engaged in an ongoing war of words. County Manager Thom Reilly and other top managers have charged that the growth in worker wages and benefits has outstripped inflation and is eroding the ability of the county to hire new workers to serve a rapidly growing population.

The union disputes the numbers and believes that management is setting the stage to dismantle the state guarantee of collective bargaining rights for public employees, a charge that county management rejects.

The bad blood between the two camps, two years before a scheduled contract renegotiation and a year before the Legislature meets, has become a key election issue for the union and could affect other unions as well. McAlevey said she believed the endorsements from SEIU Local 1107 will influence picks by other labor groups.

McAlevey said the union will target at least two County Commission races to overturn what she called a commission that is not sympathetic to the union position. She said the union also will work on at least one Assembly race in an effort to protect its collective bargaining rights.

The union will have people willing to knock on doors as well as money for the campaigns, she said.

"People understand the threat for the first time," McAlevey said.