Service Employees International Union
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{{Infobox Union |name= Service Employees International Union |country= United States & Canada |affiliation= Change to Win Federation |members= 1.8 million (2005) |full_name= |native_name= |image= Image:Seiu logo.png |founded= 1921 |current= |head= |dissolved_date= |dissolved_state= |merged_into= |office= Washington, D.C. |people= Andy Stern, International President |website= www.seiu.org |footnotes= }}Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is the fastest growing labor union in the United States, representing 1.8 million workers in about 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. The main divisions are health care (almost 50% of the union's membership, including hospital, home care and nursing home workers), public services (government employees), and property services (including janitors and security officers). With over 300 local branches, SEIU is affiliated with the Change to Win Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress. It is based in Washington, D.C., and is structured into internal departments are Communications, Education, Human Rights, International Affairs, Organization, Political, and Research.
SEIU is sometimes referred to as the "purple army," easily recognized at political events thanks to the union's purple shirts. The union is also known for its Justice for Janitors campaigns.
The SEIU was founded in 1921 in Chicago; its first members were janitors, elevator operators, and window washers. Membership skyrocketed with a strike in New York City's Garment District in 1934. Formerly known as the Building Service Employees' International Union, it absorbed the International Jewelry Workers Union in 1980 and later the Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union and Local 1199, Health & Human Services Workers.
In 1997, SEIU formed the Exotic Dancers Union and organized the workers of the Lusty Lady peep show in San Francisco into SEIU Local 790. This was the first (and as of 2005 only) successful union drive at a peep show or strip club in the United States.
In 1995, SEIU President John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that serves as an umbrella organization for unions. After Sweeney's departure, former social worker Andrew Stern was elected president of SEIU. In the first ten years of Stern's administration, the union's membership grew rapidly, making SEIU the largest union in the AFL-CIO by 2000. In 2003, the SEIU was a founding member of the New Unity Partnership, an organization of unions which pushed for reforms at the national level, most pertinently, a greater commitment to organizing unorganized workers into unions. In 2005, SEIU was a founding member of the Change to Win Coalition, which furthered the reformist agenda, criticizing the AFL-CIO for focusing its attention on election politics, instead of taking sufficient action to encourage organizing in the face of decreasing union membership.
In June of 2004, SEIU launched a non-union-member affiliate group called Purple Ocean to stand with workers in the fight for economic justice - the first organization of its kind.
On the eve of the 2005 AFL-CIO convention, the SEIU, along with its Change to Win partners, the Teamsters union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, announced that it was disaffiliating from the AFL-CIO after the 50-year-old labor giant refused to pass the Coalition's reforms. The Change to Win Federation held its founding convention in September 2005, where SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger was announced as the organizations' Chair. As with other Change to Win unions, most individual locals remain affiliated to regional AFL-CIO bodies.
Contents |
Presidents
- William Quesse (1921-1927)
- Oscar Nelson (1927-1928)
- Jerry Horan (1928-1937)
- George Scalise (1937-1940)
- William McFetridge (1940-1960)
- David Sullivan (SEIU President) (1960-1971)
- George Hardy (1971-1980)
- John Sweeney (1980-1995, now president of the AFL-CIO)
- Richard Hurtz (1995-1996)
- Andy Stern (1996-)
SEIU Locals
- SEIU 1199NY New York Health Care Employees
- SEIU United Healthcare Workers West California Health Care Employees
- SEIU 1199P Pennsylvania Health Care Employees
- SEIU 660 - Los Angeles County Public Employees, California
- SEIU 1199NE New England Health Care Employees Union
- SEIU 1199WOK West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky Health Care and Social Service Workers
- SEIU 615 - Massachusetts, Rhode Island & New Hampshire; building services employees
- SEIU 100 - Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas
- Started by Wade Rathke in the early eighties, SEIU Local 100 is one of the largest unions in the South.
- SEIU 1000 - The Largest Union of California State Employees
- SEIU 715 - Santa Clara & San Mateo Counties, California; public and healthcare employees
- SEIU 790 - San Francisco County, California; public and healthcare employees
- SEIU 1877 - California-wide; building services employees
- SEIU 2028 - San Diego County, California; public employees
- SEIU 1989 - Maine State Employees Association
- SEIU 1985 - Atlanta, Georgia
- SEIU Texas - SEIU Texas, also see Houston Justice for Janitors campaign
- SEIU 503 - Oregon: state and local government employees, home health caregivers, nursing home employees, child care providers, and private- non- profit employees. See also Our Oregon Coalition