Volume 2 / Issue 6

Don’t Miss Out on the Opt Out!

Mission Statement To provide quality service to the REAP members with integrity and respect, understanding the member is the priority.

April is coming to a close and with it, the opt out month for supervisory unit members. SEIU, can’t make anything easy, and they have devised an additional hoop to jump through this year before you are allowed to exercise your rights. They will mail a form not authorized anywhere in the MOU. They want your social security number now, too. Even when filling out this harassment form, County HR has confirmed you do not need to input your social. You may even be blessed with personal phone calls or emails pleading with you not to go…or lying to you about what will happen if you do. Was SEIU able to contact you so thoroughly during any past vote? For most, the answer is, “no.” And so, many of your peers have opted out of SEIU. If you’re still on the fence or haven’t paid much mind to this issue before, here are some quick points to help make choosing REAP an even easier decision:

EXTREME POLTICS!

This is really all SEIU cares about. The majority of your dues are exported out of the local and used for political causes with which you may not agree. Here are just two items at the tip of their extremist iceberg.

SEIU wants to kill the Prop 13 limits on property taxes. In California we pay the highest taxes in the country in nearly every category except property taxes. Do you work to be able to afford a good home? SEIU doesn’t care. This is especially huge for retirees…

SEIU wants the minimum wage to be $15/hr, almost double it’s current rate. This is more than the new lower starting steps that SEIU negotiated for classifications in our contract. With your dues money, SEIU actively reduces the pay of new county employees, while trying to double the pay of fry cooks and burger flippers. SEIU wants to devalue your paycheck to gamble that they can collect dues from every McDonald’s worker and have the County be able hire more dues paying meat.

REAP 19510 Van Buren Blvd. F3-197 Riverside, CA 92508 951-202-8058 / 951-858-6759 https://reap4us.org/ [email protected]

POOR REPRESENTATION

Perhaps you went out on strike a while back, putting yourself at risk.
What did you get for it? A worse contract than every other union in the County. What did SEIU get? They got political theater! SEIU negotiations throughout the state have followed nearly the exact same pattern as ours did, often over nothing just to mimic the Occupy Movement. SEIU won’t provide you real representation. SEIU relies on unpaid, under trained stewards. Some may be well intentioned and more knowledgeable than the average employee, but they are no substitute for legitimate labor reps. Why? It leaves more money for politics, lavish pay for themselves, and of course, catering the offices.

DUES INCREASE

SEIU wants to raise your dues. They tried to sneak an increase through last year, and they will not give up. They even have a standing dues unification committee dedicated to raising your rates.

REAP IS DIFFERENT!

REAP is local organization, honest, hardworking and unpaid. REAP focuses on you and your work instead of political schemes aimed at taking away the fruits of your own hard work. REAP already contracts for real reps. REAP is for people like you and your peers.

Please, don’t spend the next year kicking yourself. Make the change to REAP today.