A little birdie somewhere insdie the SEIU managed to smuggle out a really bad copy of the City of Houston’s Legal Department response to the SEIU petitions. AFSCME wasted no time crowing about SEIU’s failure, in an email to all employees.

City of Houston Employees are closer to winning the better pay and benefits we deserve through AFSCME NOW!

The City of Houston rejected the petitions of the Service Employees union (SEIU) because:

1) SEIU did not have enough support (signatures) to ask to be recognized.

2) SEIU is not a recognized employee association.

AFSCME NOW is a real union, with real petitions working to build a real majority of City of Houston Employees.

– SEIU does not have enough petition signatures.

– All SEIU petitions have been deemed invalid and are being returned.

– “The Petition failed to meet the requirements of Section 146.004(a)…

– The City will not proceed further in processing the petition for the reasons stated above.”

Sincerely,

Jill Scott
AFSCME NOW!

However, a carefull reading of the letter itself shows that #2 is not exactly correct. Letter and analysis below the fold.

Please excuse the awful quality of this picture. It appears to have been photocopied at least once, and then run through multiple .jpg conversions along the way. I’ve blown it up a bit to make it clearer (click for the big version), but any attempt to process it and remove all the crap bloats the file size due to side effects.

Unsurprisingly, the AFSCME NOW folks are overstating their case. But by obtaining and releasing this response, they’ve allowed much more information to come to the light of day (as well as reinforced just how far this little intramural bitch-slapping contest is going to go).

First, it is correct that the Legal Department is rejecting the petitions as insufficient. There were not enough signatures. One of the facts now meeting the light is that the petition has forced the City’s hand: we finally have a firm number of city employees: 12,588. This assumes that the City is honestly defining “covered employee” and not using the police and fire department numbers (they have their own unions) to pad the figures and raise the bar. My gut call is that it’s an honest number, but it’s not like HFD and HPD stick their employment figures on their websites.

Second, of the 5,669 signatures submitted, 4,902 were deemed valid, which makes one wonder what the deal is with the other 767. Why were they disallowed? Were they unreadable? Was someone padding the numbers with fake signatures? Were non-employees signing? Duplicates? Or were these thrown out on a technicality, such as not being eligible under 146.002(1)?

Third, the department rightly slapped down SEIU’s attempt to add additional signatures to the petitions three weeks later. The additional 381 signatures were not even considered. The fact that in two additional weeks, less than 400 signatures could be collected from the remaining 7,686 employees doesn’t speak too well for the support of the union; it looks like about 1/3 of the employees will follow SEIU, and no more. Or at least will sign a clipboard stuck in their face. Still, it should be noted that this is about 20% more of the employee workforce than the AFSCME ever managed; it’s generally said to have about 10% of the employees as members. And it’s enough to cause serious problems if the union can motivate and organize them to do more than just put their John Hancock on the next open line.

Fourth, the contention by AFSCME that the SEIU is not an “Employee Association” is incorrect, or rather, misleading. The last paragraph on page 1 clearly indicates that the SEIU has passed the first hurdle.

SEIU filed a Payroll Deduction Application Form and Enrollment Roster on January 27, 2006. Therefore, upon submitting Payroll Deduction Authorization Forms signed by each of the 622 employees (or more) along with the original blue page sign up card for each, SEIU will be treated as an employee association for City of Houston employees.
(emphasis added)

Translation: “Ok, you’re registered with us, now turn in the employee authorizations on the proper paperwork, and you’re good to go.” Just to be complete, this assumes there isn’t some catch-22 in the requirements, like the “original blue page sign up card” not being available or something. (I am rather curious that the specific form isn’t named; every form has a name). The overall gist of this letter is that the City is willing to recognize the SEIU as an employee association, but not the employee association, that is, the union with which they’re going to deal. The door is implicitly left open, however. This is one possible variation on the rope-a-dope tactics I outlined in an earlier article.

Fifth and finally, note that a new number has appeared in the above. Some 622 employees were willing, at the time they signed the petition, to put their money where their mouth (or signature) was, and authorize the SEIU to begin deducting their dues. The flip side to that is, of the 5,669 that signed the petitions, 5, 047 weren’t, but preferred to offer lukewarm support and take a wait-and-see attitude.

That’s city employees for you, cautious to the last.