January 29, 2007 Rivera to Step Down as President of Powerful Union By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Dennis Rivera, the president of New York's largest health care union as well as its most politically powerful union, announced today that he would be stepping down, but not without issuing a broadside against Gov. Eliot Spitzer's planned cuts in health care spending.
Mr. Rivera announced that after 17 years as president of 1199 S.E.I.U., he would become chairman of his parent union's million-member health care division to help it grow faster and become a more potent political force, especially in the push for universal health coverage.
"It is a time of enormous opportunity," Mr. Rivera said in an interview. "I believe we can obtain in the next two years, certainly with a new Congress and president, universal health coverage in the United States."
Mr. Rivera, whose Manhattan-based union local has nearly 300,000 members, said he would not run for re-election and would step down on June 15, when his term ends, unless New York State's budget process is completed before then. He said he wanted to remain as 1199's president over the next few months to help protect his union's members and the state's hospitals from the cuts that Mr. Spitzer is expected to announce this week.
In the past Mr. Rivera has used his union's considerable power to tangle — usually successfully — with Govs. Mario M. Cuomo and George E. Pataki over their proposed health care cuts. But now he sees a major fight with Mr. Spitzer as the new governor warns that health care spending must respond to the state's needs and not to the state's political interests — a statement that Mr. Rivera interprets as a clear reference to his union.
"I don't think the patients in New York State and our health care institutions are served by basically identifying us as villains because we are the ones who give health care to patients every day," Mr. Rivera said. "We don't want to have a war with Eliot Spitzer. We don't believe in having a war with anybody. We believe in having a constructive dialogue. But on the other hand, we're not going to be a punching bag for anybody."
Mr. Rivera said that he already took a major step by agreeing to the health care cuts and layoffs called for by the Berger Commission. He said that Mr. Spitzer was going too far by seeking an additional round of cuts.
He warned that his union might sponsor a series of newspaper ads and broadcast spots attacking Mr. Spitzer and his cuts, similar to a withering ad campaign that 1199 sponsored in the 1990's against Mr. Pataki, causing Mr. Pataki's popularity numbers to plunge.
Mr. Rivera has frequently been called one of the most powerful figures in New York State for the way he has sometimes battled and sometimes embraced governors to win billions of dollars to help pay for raises for his union's members and to expand health coverage for the state's poor.
Mr. Rivera said that his strategy as head of the hea;th care division within the Service Employees International Union would be similar to his strategy in New York State — to form alliances with hospitals and health care executives to fight against health care cuts and to fight for broader coverage and better health care.
"Dennis has reached out to employers to create pioneering partnerships for change," said Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union.