http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/nyregion/30labor.html?_r=1&oref=sloginLabor Leader Is Parting, With a Shot
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: January 30, 2007
Dennis Rivera, the president of New York’s largest health care union, announced yesterday that he would step down, but not without issuing a surprisingly pointed broadside against Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s planned cuts in health care spending.
In 17 years as president of 1199 S.E.I.U., the state’s most politically powerful union, Mr. Rivera has been perhaps the most formidable and visible labor leader in New York politics.
He announced that he was leaving his post to become chairman of a new one-million-member national health care union being established within his local’s parent, the Service Employees International Union. Mr. Rivera said the new organization would help unionize more health care workers and make the service employees a more potent political force, especially in the push for universal health coverage.
![](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/30/nyregion/30labor.1901.jpg)
Dennis Rivera, right, the departing president of 1199 S.E.I.U., with a possible successor, George Gresham.
Mr. Rivera, whose Manhattan-based local has nearly 300,000 members, said he would step down on June 15, when his term ends. He added that he was not leaving sooner because he wanted to protect his members and the state’s hospitals from the cuts that Mr. Spitzer was expected to propose tomorrow.
FULL story at link.