Service Employees International Union

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a large, politically powerful labor union with 1.9 million members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The SEIU says they are "dedicated to improving the lives of workers and their families and creating a more just and humane society". It is closely affiliated with the Democratic Party and is tightly controlled by labor boss Andy Stern, the president since 1996. At a time when most unionsare shrinking, SEIU has grown rapidly; only the National Education Association is larger. The SEIU annoys liberals by cooperating with employers rather than confronting them--indeed, it is more likely to confront other unions.

About 40% of the membership comprises public employees, whose employers are federal, state, and local governments. The employers answer to voters not shareholders, and politically powerful unions like SEIU have a strong voice at the polls,. Government agencies do not have to fear that strikes will give an advantage to their competition--they have little local competition and no fears of international competitors--so strikes are not common. But the voting power of SEIU means local and state politicians--especially Democrats--are willingly agree to union recognition and enter into long-term collective bargaining contracts with votes as an implicit side payment. A large portion of the SEIU membership comprises women, minorities, and immigrants--groups that historically were hard to organize.

The SEIU operates with a well-paid skilled staff and has a presence in virtually every major American city.

Components

The SEIU represents four service industry "divisions":

• Hospital Systems – SEIU is the largest union of health care workers in the US. The hospital systems division represents caregivers and hospital employees, including nurses and doctors in public, private, and non-profit medical institutions.
• Long-Term Care – SEIU is the largest union of long-term care workers in the US. These are home care and nursing home workers who provide services in both facility and private home settings for seniors and the disabled.
• Public Services – SEIU is the second largest union of public service employees composed of local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers.
• Property Services – SEIU is the largest property services union, with workers who protect and clean commercial office buildings, and is the largest security union, with private security officers and public safety personnel.

SEIU is strongest in California, where its United Healthcare Workers-West is one of California's largest unions at 150,000 members. The head is Sal Rosselli, who is locked in a bitter battle with Stern and the national headquarters.

SEIU participates in the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq coalition.

Politics

At the outset, Stern told members that he expected "every leader at every level of this union -- from the international President to the rank-and-file member -- to devote five working days this year to political action." In effect, this became the mandate for the union leaders to work in support of the Democratic Party. Stern sits on the Executive Committee of America Coming Together funded by George Soros. SEIU is a major component of the "Shadow Democratic Party," a network of more than five-dozen unions, nonprofit activist groups, and think tanks with the agendas of the left and which campaigns for Democrat candidates and causes. Because they are a "527 organization", SEIU is not registered as a "political organization" with the Federal Election Commission, and collects "soft money" with no limits on how much it may receive. This money, in turn, is given to Democratic candidates, political action committees, and other "527" groups promoting the same agendas.

Change to Win

In the last two decades a great deal of consolidation happened in the union movement. The garment workers union and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union), merged in 2004 to create a new union UNITE HERE, with 450,000 members. Then UNITE HERE formed a coalition with the Teamsters, SEIU, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Laborers, and the United Farm Workers (UFW) to form Change to Win in 2005. It sought to displace the well-established AFL-CIO. Stern became the spokesman for Change to Win and he challenged AFL-CIO president John Sweeney for national attention.

Recently Stern's SEIU has been raiding members from UNITE HERE, thus creating a deep division in the Change to Win coalition. In 2008 Bruce Raynor of UNITE, the co-president of UNITE HERE declare the UNITE HERE merger a failure, and tried to take UNITE (and its bank) into SEIU. The other co-president John Wilhelm of HERE protested loudly, and the internecine battle was on. Stern He financed and, with Raynor, created a new hotel-restaurant-casino union called 'Workers United" that is part of SEIU and is now openly trying to sign up HERE members. Raynor resigned from UNITE HERE, becoming president of Workers United and executive vice president of SEIU.

Meanwhile the turmoil has given conservatives in Congress another good reason to fight EFCA (a card-check device that would replace secret union elections), because it would be used in factional fights.

ACORN connections

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now's largest union backer is the SEIU. ACORN gave more than $4 million to the SEIU and its shadow party affiliates in 2006-07, according to Dept. of Labor filings. One SEIU union, the Illinois Homecare Workers and Home Childcare Providers, sprouted from ACORN's organizing efforts and pays rent to ACORN.

SEIU locals 100 and 880 are run out of the same address, on 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans, as ACORN. Financial disclosures also show that SEIU paid $500,000 in two installments to the “Wal-Mart Organizing Project.” The checks were sent to ACORN’s headquarters in Louisiana. Local 880’s Department of Labor financial filings, in 2005, shows loans and payments to ACORN-run organizations.

On August 7th 2009 three SEIU members were accused of attacking a black conservative protester outside a Saint Louis Townhall meeting. The forum on aging called by Rep. Russ Carnahan, Democrat, drew an overflow crowd in a school gym in south St. Louis County, Missouri. Dozens of people, some with signs about the health care debate, were kept out. Kenneth Gladney, 38, a conservative activist, was attacked as he handed out yellow flags with "Don’t tread on me" on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him. Mr. Gladney was attacked by people wearing dark blue SEIU t-shirts as the video that surfaced shows.

Further reading

• Fink, Leon, and Brian Greenberg. Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: 1199/SEIU and the Politics of Healthcare Unionism (2nd ed. 2009)
• Fletcher, Bill, and Fernando Gapasin. Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (2009)
• Plumer, Bradford. "Labor's Love Lost," New Republic, April 23, 2008, Vol. 238, Issue 7 online in Academic Search Premier, focus on clflict between Stern and Rosselli

External Links

• Official Website