Holway's salary obscene....

By Steve Bailey, Boston Globe Columnist  |  April 15, 2005
...from LaborNet news...

ANDREW STERN IS PRESIDENT of the Service Employees
International Union, the fastest-growing union in
the United States with 1.6 million members.
Ambitious and intense, Stern wants to radically remake
the labor movementby consolidating it into a few megaunions
that could have a chance of standing up to consolidating
Corporate America. "Can this man save labor?" Business Week
asked in a recent cover story. Stern's compensation,
according to the union's most recent regulatory filing: $239,511.

David Holway is president of the National Association of Government Employees, a Quincy-based SEIU local with just 46,000 members spread out over 41 states. Last year Holway's local spent about $2.3 million more than it took in, according to its annual report. That followed a net loss of about $2.2 million the year before according to minutes of a board meeting. The union's assets fell by 40 percent last year, and the union took out a $2 million line of credit, using its headquarters as collateral.
Holway's compensation, according to the union's most recent regulatory filing: $240,147.

A gruff-talking former lobbyist for NAGE, Holway sees himself as a reformer cleaning up the excesses of his predecessor, Kenneth T. Lyons, who ruled the union for 40 years before being forced out nearly four years ago over the matter of a few lunch tabs for a state official at Anthony's Pier 4. Few, though, would argue that change was overdue.

As for his compensation, Holway adopts the standard CEO defense: The board sets my salary, I don't. "My salary is set by the national executive committee. They set the benefit level," says Holway, who took over NAGE in 2002.

And a friendly committee it is. Holway makes $229,455 as president of NAGE and another $10,692 for sitting on the SEIU executive board, or $240,147 in all. By comparison, Ronald Gettelfinger, who heads the United Auto Workers, with 625,000 members, makes $151,630. Morton Bahr, who heads the Communications Workers of America, with 557,000 members, makes $195,137. John Sweeney, who heads the AFL-CIO, with 13 million members, makes $277,785. And SEIU's Local 509, which also represents state workers in Massachusetts, paid its president $65,724.

In all, 11 NAGE employees make $100,000 or more, including the union's lobbyist, who makes $193,692 in the job Holway had. Holway makes no apologies. "I am not afraid to pay for talent," he says. "I need hard-working people as smart as the people we are going up against."

Holway, 57, who has homes in Cambridge and Martha's Vineyard, says the union's deficit stems, in part, from defending lawsuits brought by Lyons and his family, a cost he said was approaching $2 million. Rather than raise dues, the board decided to "spend down the surplus," Holway says. The local's cash position shrunk from $2.4 million to less than $100,000 in the last year, according to the annual report.

There's another option: bringing NAGE's compensation in line with its peers.