Courtni Pugh, Executive Director of SEIU Local 99

*UPDATED with response from Courti Pugh

The Executive Director of SEIU Local 99, LA Unified’s school workers union, announced today she is stepping down to take a job in Sacramento.

Cournti Pugh, who’s been at the helm of the local union for four years, announced her plans today on SEIU’s website and Facebook page.

Pugh said she is leaving “to immediately work to elect pro-worker legislators in the state senate.” But she did not clarify for whom or for what organization.

“I believe these efforts will once again gain the 2/3 majority in the state senate for incoming President Pro Tem, Kevin de Leon, and build a stronger movement for good jobs, quality schools and a better future for Local 99 members and all working families,” she wrote.

Pugh added that she’s leaving with a “heavy heart.” She informed the Executive Board about her plans on Saturday.

Union members said they were surprised to learn Pugh is taking a new job while SEIU is in the midst of contract negotiations with LA Unified. The LA Unified board is taking up a final vote on the 2014-2015 budget later today.

SEIU and the district began bargaining sessions on June 12 and agreed to enter into a period of expedited negotiations by holding seven meetings before the end of the month. It’s unclear, what if any, impact this will have on the process.

In a statement today, Pugh said, “The strength of our union is in our membership. It is not about one person. Everyone working together collectively for the members’ best interest will allow for the best outcome of our contract negotiations with the district.”

According to Pugh’s farewell letter, Scott Washburn, SEIU’s Arizona State Director, was “enthusiastically supported” by the Executive Board to serve as Interim Executive Director effective July 19.

Pugh’s decision to leave and not announce her future plans left some SEIU members at a loss to explain her resignation at such a critical time for the union.

“Courtni Pugh’s leaving SEIU 99 has many member leaders questioning why,” said Kathryn Torres, former chairman of the local’s political action committee. “Could it be that SEIU 99 recently gave Kevin DeLeon money to his reelection and now she is leaving to work for him? It makes us members think that there are back room deals being made with members’ money, also known as dues. Or was it because $180,000 a year was not good enough for her?”

Pugh denied she made as much as $180,000.

Courtni Pugh submitted the following response to LA School Report. Here is an excerpt:

The quote by Ms. Kathryn Torres that LA School Report chose to publish is of particular concern. As the former Chair of SEIU Local 99’s Committee On Political Action, Ms. Torres is well aware of the strict legal and ethical standards that SEIU Local 99 adheres to in making political contributions.

She is also aware of the transparent process by which union members are involved in decisions related to direct candidate political contributions. Specifically, on contributions made in support of Senator Kevin De Leon, it must be noted that Ms. Torres was the Chair and attended the Committee On Political Action meeting several months ago where this contribution, along with multiple others– including 5 members of the State Senate — were recommended by the Committee.

Allegations of ‘back room deals’ or any type of unethical behavior made in her quote are disparaging and even slanderous to the members of Local 99, Senator Kevin De Leon, and my own character. I would hope that in the future LA School Report would refrain from publishing such inflammatory statements.  Or, at the very least, seek a response to the allegations.

Barbara Torres is sworn into office by Local 99 Treasurer Maggie Johnson

Barbara Torres, the president of SEIU 99, one of the most powerful unions in the Los Angeles school district, said today she is stepping aside in the 2015 race for school board in District 5, currently held by school board member Bennett Kayser.

Torres said she made her decision after a story in LA School Report revealed that SEIU executives were concerned about the potential conflict of interest.

But that doesn’t mean Kayser is without a challenger. As of today, he has a new one: Barbara Torres’s twin sister, Kathryn Torres, who is also an official at SEIU 99, and currently chairperson of the union’s political action committee.

Barbara Torres had been serving as vice president of the union when she filed papers to run against Kayser last fall. She inherited the top leadership job in December, when her predecessor, Eddie Reed, died unexpectedly in office.

LA School Report published a story last month questioning Barbara Torres’ duel role as both a member of the union’s bargaining committee, which is negotiating a new labor contract with the school district’s board, and as a candidate for school board. Courtni Pugh, executive director of SEIU was quoted as saying lawyers at SEIU were launching an investigation.

Today, Torres said she was stepping down in the best interests of the union.  “My goal is to stabilize the union and take it where it needs to be,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of issues inside and outside, and I just want to get us back on track after so many internal problems.”

She continued, “We’re in the middle of a big campaign for our contract. We haven’t received a cost of living increase since 2006…And I made the decision that the union work is most important at this time.”

Although the City Ethics Commission website still listed her today as a candidate, she contends she has formally withdrawn from the race.

“No, I’m not running against my sister,” she insisted, referring to her twin, Kathryn. “I filed the paperwork with City Ethics on Wednesday. It just takes a few days to update the web site.”

In a separate, 1-minute telephone interview, Kathryn Torres confirmed she’s in, saying, “I will be running against Bennett Kayser.” She said she had no more time to discuss her decision and ended the call.

It is unclear whether the union will allow her to remain as chair of the union’s political action committee which historically has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars toward the election and defeat of school board candidates.

The union thus became the first of the school district’s labor partners to make public its demands as the school board begins negotiations with all of its bargaining units.

The board meeting set for next Tuesday includes a number of items relating to union contract negotiations as the district moves closer to the July 1 start of the next fiscal year. SEIU is planning to present its proposals at the meeting.

“SEIU Local 99 members are incredibly dedicated to our students and the future of our schools,” Executive Director Courtni Pugh said in a press release from the union. “Every day, they make sure students get to class ready to learn. Yet, many of them struggle to support their own children. These proposals help ensure full staffing for essential student services and living wages that will allow dedicated school workers to support their families with dignity and opportunity.”

Bianca Gallegos, a spokeswoman for the union, said about 20,000 of the union’s 35,000 members earn between $8 an hour, California’s minimum wage, and $12 an hour. The remaining 15,000 members, she said, earn $15 an hour or more.

Using an average of $10 an hour for the first group, SEIU’s overall demand would cost the district an additional $280.2 million.

The union said it is also asking for the expansion of the OASIS program, which would keep school campuses open longer hours with after school programs offering health care, academic support, arts education, and financial planning and work force development for parents.

The union said in its press release that the proposals were developed over seven months through meetings at “hundreds of school sites” throughout the District.

Courtni Pugh SEIU Local 99 Executive Director

Barbara Torres, president of SEIU Local 99, the local school workers union with 45,000 members, is raising alarms within the union over her intention to run for an LA Unified school board seat.

The potential conflict is over her role as a member of the union’s bargaining committee, which is negotiating a new labor contract with the district and school board, while she is simultaneously launching a campaign against Bennett Kayser in the 2015 race for the board’s District 5 seat.

“We’re going to launch an investigation and ask our lawyers to find out if this is even allowed,” Courtni Pugh, the union’s executive director told LA School Report. “This is unchartered territory for us and something we’ve never dealt with before, so we just don’t know.”

“But I can assure you,” she added, “that we aim for the highest ethical and transparent behavior at every level of the local in order to serve the members of Local 99.”

Making this more difficult, Pugh said, is that Local 99 has not received formal notification of Torres’ candidacy. As of today, Torres remains an official candidate in the race, according to the City Ethics Commission.

Repeated efforts over several weeks to reach Torres and her campaign manager Lewis Myers of Casitas Strategic for comment have gone unanswered.

Another potential minefield for Torres is that she also serves on the union’s political action committee alongside her twin sister, Kathryn, who is the committee’s chairwoman. Several union officials said if Torres were to win an SEIU endorsement for the board seat, both she and her sister would have to recuse themselves from any PAC involvement in the race for that seat.

Otherwise, it leaves open at least a perception that Kathryn Torres has unfair influence of the committee’s spending and fundraising decisions even if the decisions are made by others.

From the district’s perspective, Dave Holmquist, General Counsel for LA Unified, says there’s nothing to prevent Barbara Torres from running for the board seat. However, were she to win, she’d have to give up her both her jobs as a district-employed special education aide and union president.

“Certainly she would be unable to perform any duties related in any way to the other job which so many things related to actions by a board member would have an impact, either directly or indirectly on Local 99,” Holmquist told LA School Report. “So if we even tried to carve out some set of things that she could do, it would be so limited as to prevent her from meaningfully being able to be a board member.”

An effort to reach Kayser for comment was unsuccessful. A message left with his office was not returned.

The local is the largest labor unit within LA Unified that chose not to get behind any of the seven candidates in the June 3 special election.

The decision not to endorse followed what the union described in a press release as “a lengthy endorsement process,” which included conversations between the candidates and members of SEIU Local 99, a review of candidate questionnaires and a formal town hall meeting where SEIU members interviewed the candidates.

“We recognize that there are many candidates in this race who share our goals for improving education inside and outside the classroom and who believe that when parents have good jobs, their children have the economic stability at home that they need to thrive in school,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh. “Our decision not to endorse one candidate is, in great part, a reflection of the strong field of contenders in this race.”

Pugh said the union would continue to follow the election and, if a run-off is necessary, would re-evaluate the candidates to consider an endorsement.

Among the other large unions with LA Unified employees, the teachers union, UTLA, endorsed three candidates — Rachel Johnson, Sherlett Hendy-Newbill and Hattie McFrazier. The union representing principals and other administrators, AALA, endorsed George McKenna.

SEIU workers on the job

SEIU Local 99, one of the most powerful and influential unions in the LA Unified School District, is holding an exclusive forum next week for union members to meet the candidates running for the open District 1 board seat.

With more than 30,000 cafeteria workers, special education assistants, custodians, bus drivers and others, the union is offering its members an opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with the candidates in a relaxed setting before the more formal endorsement process begins.

The April 3 forum will be followed a week later by a town hall meeting where SEIU Local 99 members will be joined by members of other SEIU locals in the Los Angeles region to interview the candidates. At this meeting, SEIU members will vote on an endorsement recommendation.

Finally, the leaders of SEIU locals will vote on the recommendation and issue SEIU’s endorsement. The final endorsement announcement is usually made a few days after the town hall meeting.

LA Unified’s two other big union’s are also endorsing candidates for the race. The board of UTLA, the teachers union, is recommending to its membership endorsing three current or former teachers competing — Hattie McFrazier, Rachel Johnson and Sherlett Hendy-Newbill. The administrators union, AALA, has endorsed George McKenna.

Prior to the meetings, each candidate will be asked to complete a questionnaire that seeks to learn about the candidate’s experience, priorities, and understanding of the role that custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, special education assistants and other SEIU Local 99 support staff play in student learning.

“We seek a candidate who understands that learning happens inside and outside the classroom,” SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh told LA School Report.

“We believe school board members must consider the needs of the whole child when making decisions about education,” she said. “They must ensure that students have the essential services and supports they need to succeed, including healthy meals, clean classrooms, academic assistance, safe and on time bus rides, and safe playgrounds.

“Many SEIU Local 99 members are also the parents of LAUSD students. As we consider this election, we will also look to support a candidate who understands that when parents have good jobs, children have the stability at home that they need to learn.”

That might be about to change.

In a presentation to the LA Unified School Board on Tuesday, SEIU local 99 Executive Director Courtni Pugh laid out a vision to better connect community services to schools. Dubbed OASIS, for Optimizing Access to Services, Inspiring Success, the plan aims to turn local schools sites into a hub of community services, such as park space, libraries, health care providers and technology.

“Not everyone enters the classroom in the morning with the same experiences the night before,” Pugh told LA School Report. “We have to recognize that a child’s day does not start and end in the classroom.”

It is, by her own admission, not a new idea. Earlier this year, the Youth Policy Institute launched an initiative called Los Angeles Promise Neighborhoods, which aims to fuse a variety of anti-poverty services into one program centered around a school. (The idea was inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone.)

Pugh’s goal is to set up six to 12 OASIS schools within LAUSD starting in the next school year. She hopes the project will get funding from a range of sources, including the City of Los Angeles, LA Unified and non-profits.

At Tuesday’s meeting, school board members were practically falling over themselves to praise Pugh’s idea.

“I love this,” said Steve Zimmer. “This is what we should be doing.” Even Monica Ratliff, against whom Local 99 campaigned heavily against last year, thought the plan was “fantastic.”

Pugh, a former political director of the powerful LA County Federation of Labor, has headed Local 99 for just over a year. She was also recently named the chair of SEIU International’s education council. From that platform, she is wading into the education reform debate, staking out a middle ground between charter school advocates and teachers unions.

“The debate on reform is false and silo-ed,” she said.

More than half of her members have children that go to LA Unified schools, she said, and the majority of them live within 2.5 miles of schools they work in. Not only will OASIS create jobs (some, presumably, for her members), but her members will benefit from the services it creates.

In a sense, OASIS grew out of Breakfast in the Classroom, an LA Unified program that provides, well, breakfast in the classroom. It has been heavily criticized by many teachers, who said it distracted students and left a mess. But when Superintendent John Deasy put the program to the board for a vote, hundreds of service workers rallied to support it, and the normally divided board unanimously voted to continue the service.

“That was a fight that we thought was for the moral good,” said Pugh. “Our members, many of them are part of the working poor that stood to move further down the food chain if they lost their jobs.”

Pugh expects getting OASIS off the ground to be even tougher.

“This is a humongous undertaking – very complex, multiple layers and a lot of red tape involved,” she said. “It’s a big step for us.”

Previous posts: Slideshow: Deasy’s Cafeteria Shift; Deasy’s School Breakfast Gambit Confuses Supporters; Campaign 2013: How Ratliff Won (& Reformers Lost)*; Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union

Courtni Pugh, the head of the SEIU local 99, which represents service workers in LAUSD, came in at #59. The paper writes: “When you think of labor politics and clout, you think of Courtni Pugh, the executive director of SEIU Local 99 who also served as SEIU’s state political director, a major gig in a state where the powerful union is embroiled in battles, and not always with outsiders.”

Maria Elena Durazo, who heads the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, an umbrella group for LA unions that includes UTLA, was ranked #9, three spots higher than last year.

Previous posts: Report: CA Teachers 6th Most Powerful; Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union; Big Labor Leader Gets Big Profile

The possible elimination of a program Southern California Public Radio described as “a political hot potato” presumably pleased the teachers union, which has long called for its end.

But Deasy’s plan to remove the program from his budget and force Board members to vote to restore it confused and displeased some BIC supporters.

“It’s not my favorite strategy,” School Board President Monica Garcia told the LA Times. “But I understand choices have to be made.”.

“I get what he wants to do,” Courtni Pugh, head of the 45,000-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, told LA School Report. “He keeps saying he wants to save the program, so we have the same goal. But I would have gone about it differently.”

Word about the Deasy gambit started trickling out on Thursday, and then in an interview published Friday morning in the LA Times, Deasy said he wanted BIC reinstated, but only if the Board takes “maximum responsibility.”

“The program is going to have to be cut unless the Board votes to keep it,” Deasy told the paper. “UTLA made it very clear about how this program is a big problem.”

As LA School Report described last week, UTLA has offered a teacher survey as evidence to bolster its argument that serving low-income students breakfast in the classroom is a disruptive and messy process that teachers opposed.

However, the sample of teachers who responded to the UTLA was small — only 729 compared to 10,000 classrooms participating in the program — and of those teachers who responded only a little over 400 said they had complaints with the program.

Deasy’s maneuver took many education stakeholders off guard, as Deasy has championed the implementation of the program since it was first tried out two years ago.

“I don’t think that Superintendent Deasy wants to eliminate the program,” explained School Board president Monica Garcia in a LA Daily News story. “I think he’s asking the Board to affirm whether a program that has more kids eating breakfast and getting to school on time and putting more people to work – should we continue this.”

Others weren’t so circumspect about the decision or the process of unveiling it.

“We heard through a memo,” SEIU’s Pugh told LA School Report.

“We are disheartened that Superintendent John Deasy would consider ending a program that is successfully tackling the difficult issues of hunger and poverty in our schools,” said Pugh in a written statement. (Read it here.)  “In these difficult economic times, the program has already saved thousands of cafeteria jobs. And as the program continues to be implemented, more jobs will be saved.”

Pugh admitted that BIC is not perfect because it’s just started and is a large operation to implement. “But I wholeheartedly believe the pros outweigh the cons,” said Pugh. “You don’t throw away a program when 77 percent of the kids in LAUSD qualify for reduced price lunch, and 91 percent of kids of color do.”

Putting the decision in the hands of the School Board is an interesting political move on Deasy’s part. Board members, many of whom have received financial backing from SEIU, UTLA (or both) will likely feel pressure from each union as they weigh whether to ax a program that feeds hungry students breakfast.

When asked if she knows where Board members stand on BIC, Pugh wasn’t willing to talk about individuals, but she did say, “Not the entire School Board will be supporting BIC… But we’re in a situation that we’re in now, and we’re not going to back down from a fight.”

SEIU Local 99 plans to mobilize its members; it’s already scheduled an April 30 rally to support BIC. (See event details here.)

Board members will have to decide to reinstate the program or let it expire at the May 14 Board meeting.

In a press release sent out Friday afternoon, Deasy sounded assured that his plan will work out for the program, writing, “I’m confident that at its May 14 meeting, the Board of Education will enthusiastically and unanimously vote to continue funding Breakfast in the Classroom.”

UTLA Vice-President Juan Ramirez told the LA Times Friday that the union won’t support BIC unless some of its demands, including moving breakfast out of the classroom, are met.

Previous posts: Classroom Breakfast Expanding Despite Some Complaints; Teachers Vote Against Deasy, For More Teachers; April Vote Will Highlight Union Factions

SEIU Executive Director Courtni Pugh

Unlike the closely watched Coalition for School Reform and the teachers union, SEIU Local 99 — which represents LAUSD classified employees like cafeteria workers and custodians — came out of Tuesday’s election an unequivocal winner.

The union was two for three on election night, having backed both Monica Garcia and Steve Zimmer — and could end up three for three if District 6 frontrunner Antonio Sanchez wins in May — though few paid attention.

“We did some incredible work,” said Courtni Pugh, Executive Director of SEIU Local 99.  “It just fell off the radar screen.”

SEIU spent significant money on Independent Expenditures — $550,000 plus another $170,000 through the LA County Federation of Labor, according to the City Ethics Commission’s website — although not as much as in 2011. It also spent, according to one source, another $200,000 on “in kind” contributions, where union staff members shift their duties from working for the union to working on a union campaign.

But perhaps most important was SEIU’s field organization. “That is the one thing the SEIU is known for,” said Pugh, estimating 100,000 doors knocked on and 40,000 voters saying they were going to support the SEIU slate. “That’s why we are a coveted endorsement.”

Previous posts: Local 99, LAUSD’s “Other” Labor Union; SEIU Endorses Garcia, Zimmer and Sanchez

But there’s another union that arguably just as influential when it comes to LAUSD issues: SEIU Local 99, which represents non-certificated school employees (also called classified employees) such as teacher assistants, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and special education aides.

“The SEIU Local 99 gets everything they want all the time from the school board,” said one political consultant.

Sometimes, SEIU also stakes out positions that are different from those of UTLA. The most recent example is that SEIU has endorsed two candidates UTLA is backing — incumbent Steve Zimmer and newcomer Antonio Sanchez — but it has also endorsed Monica Garcia, UTLA’s main target in the upcoming election.

While many observers chalk the occasional splits between SEIU and UTLA up to SEIU’s close relationship with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, others cite more nuanced reasons.

“The difference between SEIU and UTLA is, there’s a higher likelihood that SEIU members live in higher poverty areas,” said the political consultant (who asked not to be named). “And there’s a much higher likelihood that SEIU members send their kids to crappy public schools.”

This has made SEIU members more sympathetic to school reform priorities such as teacher effectiveness, charter schools, and accountability.

It also helps that many charter are open to hiring SEIU workers. SEIU looks at charter schools and sees an environment ripe for organizing.

The strong influence SEIU has on LAUSD could be seen at the last Board meeting, on December 11, when the Superintendent asked the Board to approve the demotion of one classified employee and the dismissal of two classified employees. An SEIU representative showed up and asked the Board to reconsider. The item was postponed until January.

Courtni Pugh, SEIU

The real question is how much money SEIU will spend to get Garcia, Sanchez, and Zimmer elected.

In 2011, SEIU spent more than $850,000 in a losing effort to elect Luis Sanchez, another candidate that UTLA opposed. That’s more than the Coalition for School Reform spent on Sanchez, who lost to Bennett Kayser, the UTLA-backed candidate.

The political consultant we spoke with also noted the key role that may be played by Courtni Pugh, head of Local 99, whom he called “one of the shrewdest political strategists in the state.”

Pugh was promoted to the head of Local 99 in September.

“The fact that she’s running [SEIU] 99 should scare the bejesus out of UTLA, especially on the Monica Garcia race,” said the consultant. “It’s basically Courtni Pugh against Warren Fletcher.”

Previous posts: Antonio Sanchez, Consensus Candidate?, SEIU Endorses Garcia, Zimmer and Sanchez, District 6: SEIU & UTLA Endorsements*, Behind the Scenes: Campaign Consultants