MARTINEZ — Contra Costa County’s biggest union is fighting for survival against a takeover bid from the Teamsters.
Public Employees Union Local 1, which represents about 2,000 county workers, could lose many of its bargaining units to the labor powerhouse, which has also gone after public employees in other counties.
The union has fought off past takeover attempts, but it could be more vulnerable this time around after several years of employee givebacks and recent leadership turmoil.
On Thursday, Teamsters Local 856 announced it had collected enough signatures from a Local 1 bargaining unit representing licensed vocational nurses and aides to trigger a vote on which union they want representing them.
Local 1 is expecting the Teamsters to target more of their bargaining units, which represent librarians, custodians, carpenters, gardeners and child care workers.
“They’re behaving in a manner that is purely anti-union and anti-labor,” Local 1 Director of Field Operations Richard Boyd said. “We don’t cannibalize each other. However, because they’re lazy, they don’t want to go out and organize nonunion workers. They’d rather attack us.”
In an email, Teamsters Local 856 Secretary-Treasurer Peter Finn said his organizers “are assisting a worker-led committee of county employees who are standing together to form a real union.”
Local 1 is considered fair game for takeover from other unions because it is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
The union, which represents about 13,000 public workers throughout Northern California, has had a tumultuous year. It fired its executive director, Peter Nyugen, over the summer after only two years on the job, and saw its longtime board President, David Rolley, resign earlier this year.
Boyd said Nyugen’s dismissal was “a personnel matter.”
Contact Matthew Artz at 510-208-6435.
