Ultra-progressive 1199SEIU union bosses ‘used n-word, groped staff and fired victims’: lawsuits

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By Isabel Vincent

Bosses at New York City’s most powerful union have been accused of using the n-word, wanting black staff caged and demanding sex from subordinates, The Post has learned.

One black worker at 1199SEIU said HR staff told him his supervisor was “racist” and “extremely evil” — but couldn’t be fired because bosses liked her.

Another said a union vice president groped her during a fundraiser for disaster-hit Puerto Rico.

Bosses were even accused of “revenge” — firing workers who complained about supervisors at the union, which sends a cash gusher to Democrats.

The claims were revealed in a series of lawsuits against Service Employees Local Union 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers, best known as 1199 SEIU.

They fly in the face of the ultra-progressive union preaching “equality, justice and democracy.”

The union says it mobilizes “against injustice — racial, economic and environmental,” according to its website.

Two of the lawsuits were quietly settled.

The union is trying to have a third dismissed.

The cases include that of senior facilities manager Lance Mincey, who sued the union’s Greater New York Worker Participation Fund in 2021.

He claimed in court papers that supervisor Karen Kowalsky regularly disparaged the African American staff, and when Mincey was a new hire in 2015, told him not to befriend other black workers, whom she called “nappy heads” and described as illiterate.

She even showed him images of lynchings.

“You are not like them,” said Kowalsky.

“You are smart and intelligent … Don’t trust those misfits.”

Months later, Kowalsky told Mincey that his employment was “not working out” because he was constantly siding with staff members against her, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court.

“She then told Mr. Mincey that she enjoys caging her black cats and black dogs at home because their facial expressions are priceless,” court papers allege.

“More importantly, she said she wanted to cage black people at the office in the same way. Mr. Mincey was shocked at these outrageous remarks but felt he had no one to turn to as she was his direct supervisor.”

Mincey also said that in June 2016, Kowalsky told him she wanted to be a “black clown” for Halloween but that all employees around her were already “black clowns and n—–rs.”

When Mincey got up to leave the room, Kowalsky allegedly warned him that she would “fabricate charges against him.”

When Mincey reported the remarks to the union’s human resources department, he was told “we all know she’s racist, but she has backing from the higher ups and she is extremely evil,” court papers say.

Mincey sued 1199 SEUI National Benefit Fund in 2021.

The union denied the allegations of racism, and the case was settled in August, according to court papers.

In another lawsuit, a woman who began working for the union in 2015 as a member organizer said a male supervisor “would frequently talk about his sex life and describe how many affairs he had during his marriage.”

Rene Ruiz, a vice president of the union, told Beriza Luciano that if she didn’t have an affair with him, he “could make it seem like [she] don’t (sic) work well with others,” according to court papers, filed in November 2018.

A few weeks later, at a fundraiser for Puerto Rico, “Ruiz approached her from behind and reached down onto her leg and attempted to grope Plaintiff Luciano by moving his hand up her skirt,” court papers say.

Luciano was later fired and when she went to the union’s human resources department to discuss the termination and report the alleged sexual harassment by Ruiz, she was hoping that the union would place her in another department, court papers say.

Instead, “defendants terminated Plaintiff due to her gender, due to her opposition at being sexually harassed, and due to her complaints regarding his treatment,” according to court papers.

Luciano settled the following year with the union, which denied the allegations of sexual harassment. Ruiz is still a vice president of SEIU and makes more than $124,000, according to public records.

“As one of the largest locals in the country, the allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at 1199 SEIU are particularly alarming,” said Charlyce Bozzello, communications director at the Center for Union Facts, a conservative nonprofit that acts as a union watchdog.

“Before leveling allegations against employers, the union should ensure its own house is in order.”

In another lawsuit, filed in 2020, a disabled outreach coordinator who had worked for the union’s National Benefit Fund since 1988 claimed he was fired in 2019 while he was on short-term disability, after he repeatedly asked for help with a medical condition.

Sean Raymond, who suffers from a medical condition that makes it difficult for him to sit or stand for prolonged periods of time, appealed to his bosses to help him comply with his doctor’s orders.

“The employer knows that its actions were wrong because the actions were contrary to the employer’s own policies,” said Raymond in court papers.

The union denied the allegations, and filed for the case to be dismissed, but it remains ongoing.

“Two of those three lawsuits do not involve 1199SEIU — it is incorrect to state that they were filed against the union,” a union representative told The Post. “1199SEIU is not party to the cases regarding Lance Mincey and Sean Raymond. The Funds are separate employers and separate legal entities from the union. They are Taft-Hartley plans to manage worker benefits and by law are governed by an equal number of management and union trustees. Based on publicly available information, the Mincey case was resolved, and the Raymond case was partly dismissed. But 1199SEIU is not associated with these proceedings. The case against the union involving Ms. Luciano is no longer pending and did not go to trial.”

The local, the largest in New York City, helped propel then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio into two terms as New York City mayor, endorsed ultra-liberal Maya Wiley in her bid to succeed him and backs US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

The local controls billions in assets held by the union itself and in eight separate funds run on behalf of hundreds of thousands of members, public records show.

The funds finance health care, job training, pensions and child care.

But the union has ignored attempts to lobby it to invest some of that fortune in minority- and female-owned investment funds, and last month was blasted by New York civil rights leader Al Sharpton for its failure to support these groups.