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Jane McAlevey, executive director of Service Employees International Union Nevada, will resign because of disagreements with the union’s president, Vicky Hedderman, over the direction of the union.
Saturday, June 28, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Shauna Hamel, right, SEIU Nevada's successor to Vicky Hedderman as president, responds to a question during an interview at the Las Vegas Sun in May as Helen Miramontes, a past president of the California Nurses Association, listens.
Beyond the Sun
The terms for the resignations of the top two leaders of one of Nevada’s largest unions were laid out over salad and breadsticks at a Las Vegas Olive Garden on Tuesday night.
Andy Stern, international president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, had sent his personal representative, Larry Fox, to end a deep divide in the Nevada local that jeopardized years of progress.
Over dinner, Vicky Hedderman, the local’s longtime president, told Fox her union had been dysfunctional for the better part of the past year. She attributed the chaos to the vicious daily leadership struggle between her and the local’s hard-charging executive director, Jane McAlevey.
The relationship was toxic. The solution, she said, was simple.
Hedderman offered her resignation on the condition that McAlevey would do the same. The personality conflict — and deep disagreements over the direction of the local — had gotten in the way of the union’s business, she said.
Hedderman said she had made the same offer twice previously — in August to Stern, and in November to Fox. By then, Hedderman had called on the Labor Department to investigate her own union over what she called a rigged election. If her offers to quit seemed like heated rhetoric back then, they now seemed sensible.
In the intervening months, the rival California Nurses Association had nearly succeeded in poaching 1,100 nurses from the SEIU at three St. Rose Dominican hospitals and had begun campaigning at University Medical Center, the SEIU’s flagship hospital.
“Everything was at risk,” Hedderman said. “It got worse and worse as time went on. There was no healing. It got more and more polarized. You just can’t take care of business when you have that going on.”
Hedderman complained that McAlevey ran a top-down shop and stifled member dissent. McAlevey said aggressive tactics were necessary to pull the union out of years of mediocrity. Her bravado (her nickname was “Hurricane Jane”) impressed some members but alienated others, along with key figures in political and labor circles.
The morning after the Olive Garden pact, McAlevey offered her resignation.
The infighting, she had decided in recent weeks, had become an overwhelming distraction to the union’s contract talks and political agenda. The feeling crystallized last month when, in McAlevey’s absence, dissident members led a successful coup of the local’s leadership board. Besides, McAlevey had felt for some time that the brunt of her work as a reformer was complete.
The two leaders, their relationship strained beyond saving, did not speak with each other about their resignation deal, using Fox as an intermediary.
The differences between McAlevey and Hedderman exploded into open warfare after a disputed election last summer in which several Hedderman supporters won seats on the local’s executive board.
That election was tossed out on a technicality and a new one was scheduled.
As tensions mounted Hedderman said she e-mailed Stern. “I said I had no problem stepping down if (he) took her out of Nevada,” she said. “It wasn’t taken very seriously.”
In the run-up to the second election, McAlevey and other paid union staffers — whose job it is to represent all members — successfully campaigned for a favored slate of candidates.
Hedderman retained her position as president, but many of her allies lost.
She and several losing candidates complained to the U.S. Labor Department, which found several violations in a preliminary report, including the use of union funds and membership rosters for internal political purposes.
Stern’s attempts to mediate the discord through Fox in November failed. Meanwhile, McAlevey publicly attributed the problems to a small but vocal group of disgruntled members and highlighted the union’s huge gains, including standard-setting contracts in the health care industry and robust political participation.
The infighting is now taking its toll: the California Nurses Association is threatening to unseat the SEIU at three St. Rose Dominican hospitals.
McAlevey said the local’s chaotic executive board meeting last month caused her to consider Hedderman’s joint-resignation proposal, which she first learned about several weeks earlier.
Several rank-and-file union members aligned with Hedderman complained that the board majority had inappropriately earmarked union money to hire a private detective to find the source of media leaks regarding the local’s botched presidential primary endorsement of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Because the local’s bylaws prevent accused board members from voting, the board minority, generally aligned with Hedderman, had the power to suspend the board majority for three months.
The de facto overthrow occurred while McAlevey was in Puerto Rico for the union’s national convention. Early the next morning she persuaded the international executive board to put the local’s actions on hold.
After that, McAlevey queried the international leadership about a “quick, smart transition” for new leadership.
Stern sent Fox to Nevada again, this time amid reports that the California Nurses Association had sent organizers and literature into University Medical Center, the base for much of SEIU’s expansion in the state.
Then came dinner this week. The international union confirmed Fox’s visit but declined to offer details, except to say that the two leaders’ decisions to resign were their own.
When the resignations take effect July 1, McAlevey will be replaced by Vicky Baca, a former registered nurse, longtime organizer and head of the international union’s public employees division. McAlevey will transfer to SEIU international’s payroll but remain as a consultant to the local for the next four months.
Shauna Hamel, the executive vice president and a McAlevey ally, will succeed Hedderman as president.
I am a member and former officer in SEIU Local 1107 and your article in Saturday’s paper does not capture the entire situation in this local. Ms McAlevey being called a reformer is a real stretch, as she was the chief organizer of the Members United to Win campaign to remove dissident officers from the local’s executive board and replace them with her loyalists. This campaign is the subject of a U.S. Dept of Labor investigation which issued four preliminary findings of violations of federal labor law (Landrum-Griffin Act) by using union money, money from non members, and membership lists to conduct an officer election campaign. This is hardly reform in my eyes but rather corruption.
Unfortunately removing Ms McAlevey from the local does not fix the problem as those staff members whose salary is paid by the rank and file members and who were promoted as reward for their willingness to follow Ms McAlevey’s violations of federal labor law remain on staff at 1107. Ms McAlevey herself remains as a paid (by SEIU International, with members dues money) consultant for four more months. Additionally the officers who benefited from and participated in the tainted election remain on the executive board. Andy Stern, president of SEIU International may believe that this cosmetic fix will satisfy rank and file members but he is mistaken. The rank and file want all remnants of corruption purged from leadership roles in this local and will not be satisfied until that happens.
If you just read the Sun, you'd think SEIU Nevada was just falling apart.
I'm a member, and I know for a fact that's not true. Yes, we've gone
through tough times, but any fast growing, successful organization is going
to have growing pains. We owe a lot to the vision of Jane McAlevey and the
many members of the Executive Board for providing a great vision for the
local over the last few years. We've nearly doubled in membership, and
have nearly singlehandedly raised healthcare standards across the Las
Vegas
Valley. It would be nice to see an article from the Sun that talks about
the gains SEIU Nevada members have made and what that means for our
community once in a while.
As an active and proud SEIU Nevada member, I wish the Sun reporters would do a better job of giving a more balanced view of who SEIU NV really is. We’ve made such huge gains over the last several years and proudly provide quality pubic services and patient care for our community. Not everyone knows about the good work SEIU NV members carry out on a day to day basis. We are some of the first people to greet Las Vegas’ millions of tourist. We work with foster children, fight to keep funding for our public hospital and provide housing for some of our most vulnerable populations.
We are about the business of improving the lives of working families and the quality of life for everyone in our community. I think it speaks volumes that two of our leaders stepped away from the work that they love doing most to allow our organization to have a new beginning and to continue moving forward.
SEIU has come into the new century with a bang under the leadership of Jane. The state of Nevada has become a better place because of the work that SEIU has done to support its workers and entire community, which would have never happened without the leadership of this incredibly intelligent and talented lady. Lets not forget the long service that Vicky Hedderman has given to the members of this Local for the past 20yrs which will not soon be forgotten. I echo the purpose of SEIU is to improve quality of lives for everyone. Each time I read the reviews of SEIU from the Sun it is obvious that not all truths are being told, it only promotes the attack of the good hardworking people of this community that fight hard each and everyday to provide a safe working environment, quality wages, and benefits that we can support our families with. Why not get all sides? What is the Sun really afraid of? We will continue to grow strong and with the new beginning and we will continue to stand together in Unity. This is not an end to the book, just a start to a new chapter.
I would like to say as one of the members of SEIU who has been labeled by Ms Mcalevey as a disgruntled loser, that I am not the loser but the members who work at my hospitals, and the community served by the members of local 1107 are the real losers. She came to town with a vision of who had the power and how she intended to get the power to supposedly build a stronger union but in fact the union has begun to implode on every level.
Executive board officers who scream and shout obsenities at the meetings when challanged by rank and file members. Officers who cause hostile work environments by accousting members verbally in public areas of the work site. And now when their leader has been supposedly been dismissed they come forward with using the catch phrases "things will be much better now that two nurses are running the local".
I am embarrassed by what has happened to the organization I have been apart of for over 14 years and no longer want to be associated with the ugliness Ms McAlevey and her appointed board members have brought to this union.
Ms Hedderman has spent the last year trying to enforce the constitution and bylaws on both the executive director and her executive board. She made the ultimate sacrifice to resign from her position only to have it surface that Ms McAlevey resignation was connected to a 4 month consulting position paid for by the international union monies. This request to have Ms. McAlevey fired was made almost a year ago and we were informed by Mr Fox he did not have the power to hire or fire. So now when SEIU is about to lose the nurse representation in the valley he suddenly has the power to make it happen. The window of opportunity has been lost and I am not sure what will rise out of the ashes of the once powerful SEIU Local 1107 now know as SEIU Nevada. But it may not matter as there is a strong current that most members will be resigning their membership as they no longer want their dues monies financing such a corrupt organization.
I find the comments interesting and it didn't take long to see that the "nurses"speaking above sound like they are the "newly organized" who haven't got a clue what a "union" is suppose to do for its' members. As a long time union member I've said for a long time something ain't right in River City...know what you all have gained?? Maybe an increase in salary but not much else. Hospital workers--how's that "good" staffing? Lots of words written in that contract of yours but not much done to really effect change in how many patients you're taking care of, now is there? Treated better by the boss when you complain about having too many sick patients to take care of? Union done anything about that? County workers, don't forget about that SB544 and how your union hammered the Legislative Session to protect retiree healthcare. I think I remember hearing that it just wasn't a "priority" for your "visionary" McAlevey-but then pretty much anyone not working in hospitals just pay their dues and haven't seen the "visionary" do anything for them. I do have to say that there are some old time union members that have fought the good fight to protect the workers (I'd have to give Hedderman some cudos for that one)..but McAlevey--her vision is organize, organize and then leave them to fend for themselves...after all, we shouldn't expect that our daily issues are important--only our money...I, for one, want a union that cares that my contract language isn't being followed and then DOES something about it! Unity? You've got to be kidding me.....the "visionary" is still lurking in the closet, pulling the strings, that is until the Department of Labor throws her in jail for all the corruption she's brought to your local.
As an SEIU member I have been thoroughly disgusted by their devisive, derisive tactics. They have effectively split the RN Union members & fractured our rank & file. The DOL investigations have shown that our union monies were improperly used for Jane's puppet officers to be elected while our rank & file officers were tossed out to the curb. I have been verbally abused on hospital property by her puppet people & have decided that when the California Nurses Association approaches me to join their forces I will embrace them because their vision more approaches mine for nursing in Nevada. Kudos to Jane for disrupting & dividing the union!! Good job Jane!!
Reformer? Jane Mcalevey?? ha ha ha I agree with davidhp--if that's the definition of reform then we're all in big trouble! She sure has alot of people fooled but her problem was she couldn't fool everyone. Mcalevey is nothing more than an egotistical, self proclaimed champion of workers...it's a lie like everything else she says and does. I do admit she's pretty slick in pointing the finger at everyone else as the reason for the union's problems and even better at talking people into doing the dirty work for her. She's a coward using anyone and everyone she can to get what she wants. Reform my behind! She says she came here and needed to be aggressive to pull us out of mediocricy--well I'll take mediocracy over corruption, deception and division any old day. More importantly, I wonder if Hedderman knew that the International planned on keeping Mcalevey on as a consultant after the dual resignation...I highly doubt it-Hedderman may have had some faults but she always fought for the workers and that was her downfall in the big plans of SEIU. I've heard it said from people in SEIU that filing grievances on unjust boss behavior isn't cost effective and people who get into trouble at work deserve what they get. No thanks SEIU your behind the scenes backdoor deal to keep Mcalevey on as a consultant after the agreement of a dual resignation says more than you know.....beware members the back door deals are a norm for this union and the members will pay the cost in the end. Don't worry about Hamel, she'll be used as a pawn and won't be able to control any decisions but that's ok because she fell for the Mcalevey message and now she'll be expected to go along with the "program"--for the good of all--I'm just confused on who it's good for, certainly not the members. Just wait, now the new and improved SEIU Nevada will come with messages of good tidings and fall all over the workers trying to "win" them back...don't be fooled. The minute drop month is over or the CNA vote is over, you'll be right back to the same garbage...it just is who they are and that's why SEIU still wants her input-she's one of them. It's not been about workers, it's been about organizing for more money in D.C.; afterall, they're still paying the reformer from your dues ....not fooling me here. Can't blame Hedderman,since I think she did this with the best of intentions and that's at least ridding the union of the person who brought the toxin to Vegas; unfortunately D.C. leaders are still the same. WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE HERE FOLKS.
lvrn,sassyunionista,lasvegasrn What union do you belong to? Or are you one of the puppets on the e-board the ones who were hand picked by Jane to distroy the union that many members have tried so hard to keep together for over a year. Get your heads out of the sand. Jane had one mission and one misson only a power play for her own gain.
Nothing has changed international came and put a bandaide on the situation. This will not last for long ,giving Jane four more months to distroy even more, this union will never recover. With this existing e-board.
Everyone should come and see the 3 ring circus that exist. Caution this is a 3 ring R rated circus e-board member yelling and cursing at each other ,yelling a members to shut up. This is one of the most disfuctional board you have seen.
No resepect for each other or for the rank and file member who are trying to keep this union intact,And for who they are suppose to represent.
Vicky sorry you had to be a international pawn in this game they are playing. We asked for help a year ago and were ignored ,Jane had the international wraped around her little finger telling them nothing is wrong. WELL LOOK WHAT HAPPENED. Our union is on the brink of distruction to little too late.
Andy Stern Mary Kay and Larry Fox you should all be ashamed of yourselves. You are all as self serving as Jane is.
You deseve what you get .
If we are going to save this union everyone must get involed .I am so disgusted after being active for more then 10 yrs that if there is no change I will go to. We can not keep fighting for justice and a member union (not a hand picked one) without everyone stepping up to plate and help.
WAKE UP AND SEE FOR YOURSELVES>
MEMBERS UNITE
One more thing Shawn is just as bad as Jane hand picked and schooled by Jane. Just one of her many puppets .There has been no change.
As a Steward at Sunrise Hospital I have been active in SEIU since the beginning. SEIU started out as a good thing for our workers. Relations with management have matured, wages have increased, the general attitude on the floors improved. Then around 2006 things began to change. As we bargained our current contract many of us around the negotiations table noticed that this new girl Andy Stern had sent us was shutting us out of the bargaining process. Instead of the bargaining team hammering out proposals Jane started bringing us the finished proposals already done. I have to give her credit, she is one slick salesman. Few of us around the table realized what was going on until it was too late. After sending out a post card to certain members of the local with conflicting voting dates for the 2007 elections and then losing the election, Jane had her minions contest the election based on their own attempt to cheat (amazing! Cheat and lose and protest the election because you cheated!). Of course the 1107 Executive Board saw through the scheme and upheld the election. Not to fear, Jane just called her boss Andy Stern and had the International set the election aside. Not wanting her lackeys to lose another election Jane used our paid office staff to openly campaign for her candidates, got staff from out of state locals to solicit contributions for her candidates, and worked with management at at least one work site to prevent opposition candidates from campaigning on site. In short, she openly cheated the election to put her hand picked Executive Board in place. Formal charges have been filed with the DOL and their findings are expected to be published in July. In a preliminary findings report the DOL stated that they have identified 4 violations of Federal Labor Law in the conduct of Jane and her band of lackeys. (Continued in next message)
At the last Executive Board meeting in OPEN FORUM the local Attorney (every decision they make is run through a lawyer, I wonder how much Jane gets paid for that referral) informed the Executive Board that these findings about to be published and advised the board to settle with the DOL before the findings are published. When repeatedly asked what the cost to the Local would be if they fail to settle and go to court (The lawyer told them that once published the findings will go before a Federal Judge where they will have to be defended) the lawyer avoided answering the question. When asked what settling would mean he told them that their entire contested election would be set aside and they would have to rerun the election supervised by the DOL. When faced with a fair election under supervision they panicked. Without exception the board members who were placed in office by the corrupted election voted to keep themselves in office regardless of the cost to the dues paying members. That vote more than anything else finally cemented the end of my relationship with SEIU Local 1107 (McAlevey may have changed the name to SEIU Nevada, but that was never approved by the membership). If our Executive Board is so corrupt that they will face conviction on federal charges (and loss of their license for all the nurses involved) rather than face running a fair election for office then there is nothing any ethical person can do other than resign my membership. By the way, it was Jane herself that named her Hurricane Jane. The names that I have heard used for her (including by senior members of her staff when she is not around) include Mad Dog McAlevey, Hanoi Jane, The Wicked Witch of the West and a few others that can not be printed on an unrestricted site.