Milly Silva ousted from 1199 SEIU post

Milly Silva, the 2013 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, lost her bid for re-election as Secretary-Treasurer of 1199 SEIU, the United Health Care Workers East union, after a landslide reshaping of the union’s senior leadership.

Veronica Turner Bigs, the senior executive vice president, ousted Silva, 26,267 to 11,435, a margin of 71%-29%.  This is the number two-ranked official at the 1199 Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers East union and was elected in 2022.

In the same election, union president George Gresham was deposed by Yvonne Armstrong, also a senior vice president, by a 69%-31% margin.

Rhina Molina, an executive vice president from the New Jersey region, was defeated for another term. She finished 27th in a field of 34 candidates for eighteen EVP seats, polling 14,713 votes behind the 17th-place finisher.

Silva, a Montclair resident, ran on a slate with gubernatorial candidate Barbara Buono twelve years ago.  They were defeated by the Republican incumbents, Gov. Chris Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.  The Buono/Silva slate marked the first all-female statewide ticket in New Jersey.

She ran 1199 SEIU’s nursing home division for New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley from 2016 to 2022.  Previously, Silva was the Vice president of the New Jersey SEIU.