The State Worker: SEIU Local 1000 executive pay increase proposal killed

The State Worker

Chronicling civil-service life for California state workers

September 17, 2011

SEIU Local 1000 executive pay increase proposal killed

SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker this morning pulled back a proposal that would have tripled her income and significantly boosted the pay for the local's three vice presidents.

Walker said this morning at the local's 64-member council meeting in Oakland that she had asked the author of the controversial pay proposal to pull it from the council's weekend agenda.

According to union spokesman Jim Zamora and members present at the meeting, the room of about 230 union officers and rank-and-file members--some attending specifically to talk about the pay plan--burst into applause at the announcement.

The plan would have set the total annual pay for the local's president at $150,000 and $125,000 for its three vice presidents by adding a union stipend to the state wages that the union reimburses the government. Walker stood to receive $103,000 above her state wage of $47,000 as a Department of Justice legal secretary.

Proponents of the plan said that the jobs' responsibilities and the size of the 95,000-member organization justified the increases. Opponents blasted the proposal as a tone-deaf, self-serving perk that is out of step with the union's leadership values.

Walker also said this morning that the local would continue to study the issue.

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