Local 1199 using corporate tactics against in-house union, staffers say

After a year of bargaining for a first contract, a heated dispute between leadership of the largest union local in the United States and its unionized staff broke out into the open this month when union leadership sent an all-staff email accusing staff of walking out of negotiations and refusing to entertain more bargaining proposals.  

Around 250 staffers in Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, a local with over 450,000 members across the East Coast that exerts immense political power, joined the Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild in 2024 amid a wave of unionization among labor union staff. That year, Local 1199 fired a staffer just before the in-house staff union formed and distributed mailers urging staff not to join the then-nascent union — conduct that staffers labeled as union busting akin to some of the worst conduct carried out by corportations of Local 1199 members.

Now under new leadership, Local 1199 continues to emulate tactics familiar to staffers as those reserved for the corporate bosses the union typically battles, staff told The Chief.  

“We didn't expect 1199 leadership to act like those terrible bosses we fight against for our members,” said Henry Martinez, a systems administrator who’s worked at Local 1199 for 27 years and is on the bargaining committee of the staff union  "It baffled our minds that we have to go against a boss and not a union leader with 1199." 

Dividing staff from rank and file

Union negotiators treat staff like children, staffers said, and intentionally stoke division between staff and the rank-and-file members staff are employed to aid while bargaining in bad faith. The dynamic, workers say, was displayed in an email Local 1199 management sent to staff following the most recent bargaining session earlier this month.  

Titled “1199 Makes Final Contract Offer After Guild Walks Out of Negotiations,” the email obtained by The Chief included quotes from two rank-and-file members endorsing Local 1199’s “final” contract offer that was emailed to staff negotiators hours after the end of face-to-face discussions. According to Local 1199, staffers came to the most recent bargaining session unprepared to make significant proposals, refused to hear additional proposals and walked out of negotiations, so Local 1199 emailed their full offer soon after. 

Local 1199 said that rank-and-file members play a central role in bargaining with the staff union, and that in the bargaining session, 1199 members pointed out that staffers’ demands are far above what 1199 members make. 

Members of the staff union dispute that characterization, saying that rank-and-file members were denigrating staff, that staff participated in negotiations for 45 minutes past the originally agreed-upon cutoff and did not abruptly walk out of the discussions. Local 1199 negotiators frequently cut staffers off and reneged on basic agreements said Farah Kimji a researcher on the staff union's bargaining committee.

"Pitting union members against their own staff is a practice that is not only unethical but unusual, in the labor movement world," they said.

Amysue Hannon, a data specialist on the staff union’s bargaining committee said it is "detrimental to the labor movement" for 1199 to behave as it has.

“1199 leadership does not want to reach a negotiated agreement,” she said.  “Instead they intended to impose their proposed contract on the in-house staff and force us into submission.” 

Local 1199 insists the union is trying to move bargaining along, and that the staff union has made very little movement on its economic proposals that initially included $11 million in new costs.  Staff currently make $80,000 a year on average have zero-cost health insurance, paid time off, a pension, as well as childcare training and education benefits that are industry leading, according to Local 1199.

New leadership, same problems

Staff has been negotiating with union leadership since November 2024 and were hopeful that Local 1199’s posture would change when the union’s former leader George Gresham was ousted in an election last year. Gresham had been inundated with corruption allegations, and staff members were heartened by new president Yvonne Armstrong’s calls for transparency and change.  

But Armstrong has yet to change union leadership’s behavior towards staff, said Yolanda Whitted-Futrell who has worked in Local 1199’s dues department for 18 years.  

"It's the same B.S. but a different regime,” Whitted-Furtell said. “It's annoying, it's very disheartening.” 

Local 1199 says that staff unionized due to unaddressed issues under Gresham and that the union has offered staff 5 percent wage increases.

“We have bargained in good faith for many months, made significant overtures addressing genuine concerns raised at the table, and put forward a final package that is fair, sustainable, and responsible to our members, whose needs will continue to guide our organizational decisions,” Armstrong said in a statement.

Staff say their key bargaining priorities include ensuring that pay rates rise as staffers build up their seniority, increasing job security protections and guaranteeing severance pay if staffers are laid off. Staff added they are ready to return to the bargaining table now, if management shows workers respect that that haven’t received in recent bargaining sessions. 

“We feel we haven't been treated fairly and that bargaining in good faith has not been the method here,” Martinez said. “Just give us respect."