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The Sacramento Bee Jon Ortiz column [The Sacramento Bee :: ](Sacramento Bee (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) June 12--SEIU Local 1000 dissidents have mounted an Internet campaign aimed at cutting into money the union receives from members. DMV employees Mariam Noujaim and Lisa Garcia said they have been rolling out emails to Local 1000 members this month urging them to file as "non-germane objectors" who contribute nothing to the union's politically -- or ideologically-motivated -- activities. About one-third of the $59.8 million the local spent on operations last year went to such efforts, according to the union's 2013 financial statement. Local 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora declined to comment, but the 95,000-employee local's leaders have faced similar tactics over the years intended to chip away at membership and dues. Noujaim, who is a part-time real estate agent, gained some notoriety for staging a public ambush campaign, Occupy SEIU, that used paid protesters to crash a union rally at Caesar Chavez Park. She also spent nearly $20,000 on litigation to force Local 1000 show her its financial records. Noujaim's latest SEIU tweaking cost about $1,450, she said. The money launched the www.seiuNGO.com website and paid a programmer to merge employee names culled from state pay data with contact information in the state's employee directory. That list was used to send out 83,799 emails to employees covered by Local 1000. The emails, which were sent out in small batches to avoid triggering the state's Internet firewalls, contained a link to a website with information about becoming a non-germane objector. As of Wednesday, according to data Noujaim forwarded from the firm that handled the mass email, 36,803 recipients, or 43 percent, opened the non-germane letter. Of those, 14,518, about 40 percent, clicked the link to the website. The annual deadline for filing non-germane objector letters is July 1. ___ (c)2014 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) Visit The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) at www.sacbee.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |