Rejection: SEIU “just too militant, too political for us”

California Correctional Officers Tell SEIU Leave

Correctional officers say SEIU “too militant” and they are tired of their forced dues being spent on politics and SEIU national agendas like “immigration reform” and Obamacare.

Correctional officers who work in the Fresno County Jail are seeking a way out of the Service Employees International Union — again.

It won’t be easy, and it certainly won’t be amicable.

A vote will come possibly around the Thanksgiving holiday and already both sides are ramping up the campaigning.

“We’re not anti-union,” said Victor Prado, co-president of the Fresno County Public Safety Association, who helped lead a similar breakaway call last year. “We just want someone who’s going to bring things back to the basics.”

Prado, along with fellow correctional officer Eulalio Gomez, have been leading the effort to break away from the SEIU.

Among other complaints, they say the union has become like a big corporation that is pursuing a national agenda with goals like passing immigration reform and implementing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]. Instead, they say, it should be focused on core issues at the local level like wages and benefits.

“We think the SEIU business model is broken,” Gomez said. “They’re just too militant, too political for us.”