Before there was the Dana Cope who resigned as director of the State Employees association under a cloud, there was Dana Cope the union organizer and leader with big ideas for labor in the state. He was always a complex character. While he had a long history of labor activity, he also flirted with anti-union Republicans throughout his tenure at SEANC.
Dana arrived in North Carolina as a campaign operative sent here by labor to help elect Harry Payne Commissioner of Labor. After Payne upset incumbent John Brooks, Cope went to work as a lobbyist for the Department of Labor. When Payne decided to not to seek a third term in 2000, Cope took the job as SEANC’s executive director.
In SEANC, Cope saw an organization that had never lived up to its potential. SEANC represented more than 50,000 state workers and retirees but had never exerted the political clout of the North Carolina Association of Educators. Cope aimed to change that.
He believed that the legislators never gave state workers their due because the elected leaders never paid a political price for ignoring SEANC. So in 2002, the first election cycle in his tenure, Cope took aim at the state senate. He targeted powerful incumbent Democratic senators like Orange County’s Howard Lee who lost a tough primary with Ellie Kinnaird. Cope angered the Senate leadership but he sent a message to the political establishment that SEANC was now player on the political field and they played hardball.
To increase SEANC’s influence, Cope began courting public sector unions. He wanted to transform SEANC into a real labor organization and not just a membership association. SEIU and their charismatic leader, Andy Stern, were interested. By affiliating with SEIU, SEANC would become the largest public sector union in the South.
By all accounts, Stern and Cope initially hit it off. Cope would deliver his members to SEIU and Stern would fund Cope’s drive to make SEANC a more forceful political force in North Carolina. Cope received such favorable treatment that it caused grumbling among SEIU leaders from other states.
In 2004, Cope convinced SEIU to punish Governor Mike Easley for his perceived slight of state workers. SEANC endorsed Republican Patrick Ballentine for governor and SEIU donated $500,000 to the Republican Governors’ Association to spend on behalf of Ballentine. Ballentine lost badly to Easley and the SEIU contribution ended up controversial both in the union and at the North Carolina State Board of Elections. But Cope demonstrated his influence in the union and in North Carolina politics. In 2008, SEANC became SEIU Chapter 2008.
Throughout his tenure, Cope continued his heavy-handed tactics, targeting incumbent legislators in both parties with hard hitting mail pieces during elections and with tough radio ads during the legislative session. He angered the leadership in both houses of the legislature but his membership consistently supported him and the money continued to flow from the SEIU national.
Cope perpetually defied convention. He was a leader in the nation’s most progressive union but was a strong supporter of gun rights. He was a registered Democrat who seemed more comfortable with Republicans in power. When other unions adamantly opposed the legislature’s cuts to unemployment benefits, Cope sided with the North Carolina Chamber in supporting them. While other labor organizations, including other SEIU affiliates, were big supporters of the Moral Monday protests, Cope openly and vocally criticized them.
In state politics, Cope never understood the balance between the carrot and the stick. He used the stick much more liberally and made a lot of enemies in the process. His slash-and-burn tactics alienated a lot of powerful legislators and he rarely forged alliances with other groups that might have helped his cause. When he finally got in trouble, not a lot of people outside of SEANC came to his defense.
In the end, hubris got Cope. Cope always had a big ego (he even mounted a short-lived bid for Commissioner of Labor in 2004) but he needed it to push his more audacious ideas and build the following necessary to survive in the harsh world of union politics. At some point, though, Cope began believing his own spin. I’m sure he thought he deserved the perks he awarded himself and his board apparently thought so, too. But regardless of how far he and other members believe Cope took SEANC, the organization was not his. Dana was an employee who should have been beholden to the members, not them beholden to him.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Had an opportunity to speak with him personally years ago right before the Democratic National Convention. I decided at that point and after that conversation I did not trust him nor particularly care for him. He has done much damage in this state not the least of which was to the reputation of SEANC.
That is a good summary of Cope’s days in the spotlight. Now that the SEANC members see what happened I hope they will choose a better leader.
Good and fair overview – but you left out his alleged tacit partnership with Art Pope to re-segregate Wake County Schools
Actually one correction…Cope ran for Labor Commissioner in 2000 and gave up the campaign to accept the SEANC job. He did not run in 2004.
Thanks for the useful summary, Thomas, but you really went easy on Cope at the end. He seems to have paid for work on his house with union money. That would be completely despicable, and deserves to be called out – strongly – as such. It goes way beyond hubris and “believing his own spin” into what’s almost certainly deeply criminal behavior.
Talk about squandered potential…..both Cope’s and SEANC.