Cooper restores state worker association benefits and access

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has essentially reversed an order by his Republican predecessor that scaled back benefits for North Carolina’s chief state employee union.

With his signature, Cooper restored the ability of members of the State Employees Association of North Carolina and other groups to visit executive branch agencies to recruit and speak with members and to distribute information.

Then-GOP Gov. Pat McCrory rescinded that access in December 2015 through an executive order that also prevented officers and delegates of SEANC and similar groups from getting three days’ paid leave approved to attend their annual conventions. McCrory had argued it cost taxpayers $425,000 annually to offer SEANC members paid convention leave. SEANC disagreed, saying the amount was overblown.

Cooper, who also restored the three days’ leave, made no reference to McCrory in announcing his executive order late Thursday. The new order also provides more opportunities for some government employee groups to meet with his administration and other top leaders than McCrory granted.

“I want to encourage state employees to participate in an ongoing dialogue about the direction of state government,” Cooper said in a release announcing the order. The governor added the order “will help facilitate opportunities for state employees to voice their perspectives, ideas and concerns with leadership moving forward.”

McCrory’s order had pulled back benefits that Democratic predecessors Mike Easley and Beverly Perdue had created in executive orders that benefited SEANC, which has about 55,000 current employees or retirees as members. The Democrats’ actions were considered positive for big labor in a state known as one of the least unionized in the South.

SEANC is a local of the Service Employees International Union and lobbies but lacks the kind of power other governmental unions may have. State law bars collective bargaining between state and local governments and their workers for salaries and benefits.

Responding to Cooper’s order, SEANC Executive Director Mitch Leonard said Friday “this increased cooperation between management and employees can only result in positive outcomes for the state and the taxpayers.”

At the time of the 2015 order, McCrory’s office also cited the need for a “re-examination” of the state’s relationship with SEANC following past problems within the group that ultimately led to fraud convictions and a prison sentence for its former executive director. SEANC responded then that major reforms had been instituted.

SEANC’s political arm does endorse candidates. The group backed Cooper over McCrory in last November’s election and made no endorsement in the 2012 race between McCrory and Democratic nominee Walter Dalton.

McCrory’s 2015 order still gave any employee association headquartered in North Carolina with at least 2,000 state employees the opportunity to meet annually with the governor and twice a year with the state human resources director.

Cooper’s new order says the potential meetings with the human resources director are quarterly but limits the gubernatorial meeting to the governor’s representatives. It also restores parts of Perdue’s 2010 order allowing an association with substantial membership in an agency to meet with agency secretaries at least quarterly.

Cooper’s order, however, could make it more difficult for smaller employee organizations to participate. His order raises the threshold for qualifying groups to those with at least 5,000 state employees. Perdue had set much lower membership requirements that appeared to bring in teacher and educator groups, whose members often work for local school boards.