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THE DEALMAKER - A UNION BOSS WITH HUGE POLITICAL POWER, DENNIS RIVERA MADE THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AGREEMENT POSSIBLE. OBSERVERS SAY HE’S A SKILLED MEDIATOR — BUT HE CAN PLAY HARDBALL.
Buffalo News, The (NY) - Sunday, April 7, 2002
Author: TOM PRECIOUS and CHARITY VOGEL - News Staff Reporters

EXCERPT

He started his life and his union career in Puerto Rico. Back then, Rivera went by the name Dennis Hickey — using the last name of his Irish father.

In Puerto Rico, he honed his organizing skills as a Vietnam War protest leader and started two unions. In 1977, he moved to New York City, where he began his life’s work of organizing health care workers. Along the way, he took on his mother’s surname — Rivera . Today he cites his Puerto Rican roots as a major factor in his success.

“I come from a very small town where we basically have grown accustomed to listening to people,” Rivera said. “I think that’s it.”

In New York, Rivera started out at the bottom of the union food chain: as an organizer, a job with little glamour and little pay but, especially in New York City, a job that demands street smarts and maybe even a bit of hustling.

Rivera rose through the ranks. In 1989, just 12 years after he arrived from San Juan, he gained control of what today is Local 1199 of SEIU , the Service Employees International Union. That union includes 210,000 members — orderlies, cafeteria workers and clerks — who are some of the industry’s lowest-paid workers.

Rivera is also president of the New York State Council of SEIU , a 325,000-member umbrella group that includes 1199 Upstate, which represents 17,000 health care workers from Buffalo to Albany. He makes $103,000 a year — modest by the standards of downstate labor bosses.

Along the way, as Rivera rose to power, politicians learned all about his importance — especially those who relied on his help to make it into office.

In that category are former President Bill Clinton, New York City politicians, and U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer.

“If you want to have one guy in your corner,” Schumer said, “he’s probably the one.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/business/27union.html

Dennis Rivera Leads Labor Charge for Health Reform

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: August 26, 2009