FASTEST GROWING UNION

Vol. 8, No. 2
April, 1999



	The Nation's Fastest-Growing Union Crowning a year of extraordinary membership growth, the Service Employees International Union, on February 25, won the right to represent the 74,000 home-care workers in Los Angeles County as a result of a mailed ballot in which the union received about 90 percent of the vote. In terms of numbers, the victory was the largest in a half century, topped only by the 1937 unionizing drive at General Motors, which brought 112,000 into the United Auto Workers. These home-care workers, who tend to the sick, elderly and disabled, earn an average $5.75 an hour and do not receive health insurance, vacations or other benefits. They are almost all women, people of color and immigrants. They need the SEIU, the most effective union for low-paid workers in the health-care industry, to negotiate for them. During 1998, the union grew by more than 185,000, more than the total membership of several international unions. It gained 64,000 through direct organizing and 121,000 through affiliations with other organizations. The union organized 15,000 hospital workers, taking on the world's largest health care company, Columbia/HCA, in Las Vegas, where it won a landslide victory for 2,500 workers at Sunrise Hospital. It played a key role in winning collective bargaining rights for 140,000 public employees in Puerto Rico, setting the stage for a massive organizing campaign to enroll them into the union. It is now embarking on a campaign to organize the nation's doctors. What the Union Does to Grow It spends 47 percent of its $80 million annual budget on organizing. That does not include the 77 local unions that have committed a total of more than $30 million to organizing. This is in sharp contrast with most AFL-CIO affiliates, which budget less than 5 percent for recruiting new members. SEIU has a total of 500 full-time organizers, plus support staff assigned to various campaigns across the country. Of these, some 300 organizers are employed by its local affiliates. Sixty-seven locals have organizing directors. Also, it uses an auxiliary force of 1,500 member-organizers who participated in the 1998 union-building campaigns. It has a fertile field for organizing. Health care is perhaps the fastest-growing industry in the country, with about 12 million employees, of whom only one million are organized. The union has set its sights on some big targets, such as the 80,000 home-care workers in other California counties; 17,000 in Oregon and Washington State and 5,000 in New York State. Because health care workers are mainly poorly-paid women and minorities, the union's organizing efforts take on the character of a moral crusade. In fact, the union can, on occasion, use the non-violent but disruptive tactics of the civil rights movement, as it did when it staged sit-ins in office buildings and blocked bridges in Washington in its struggle to gain union recognition for 2,000 janitors. The union strategy calls for organizing an entire regional market, rather than one employer at a time. When it succeeds, as in the case of the Washington janitors, it can avoid employer competition to drag down wages and working conditions. Andy Stern, Dynamic SEIU Leader A major factor in SEIU's success is its president, Andrew Stern, whose aggressive and inspiring leadership made the "culture of organizing" a reality in the union. A former organizing director of the international union, Stern is the architect of the union's strategy of reaching out to millions of low-paid women and minorities in the service industries, groups that many labor leaders used to maintain could not be organized. Stern, at age 47, is one of the youngest top leaders in the labor movement. He got his start as a social worker in Philadelphia in 1972, climbing up the union ladder to become SEIU president in 1997 to succeed John Sweeney, now AFL-CIO president. With 500 organizers working full-time in the health-care industry, the SEIU is a model for many AFL-CIO affiliates that are struggling to gain members so they can maintain their economic strength and political influence. The union expects to make 1999 a banner organizing year, living up to its motto, "Leading the Way."

The Nation's Fastest-Growing Union

Crowning a year of extraordinary membership growth, the Service Employees International Union, on February 25, won the right to represent the 74,000 home-care workers in Los Angeles County as a result of a mailed ballot in which the union received about 90 percent of the vote. In terms of numbers, the victory was the largest in a half century, topped only by the 1937 unionizing drive at General Motors, which brought 112,000 into the United Auto Workers.

These home-care workers, who tend to the sick, elderly and disabled, earn an average $5.75 an hour and do not receive health insurance, vacations or other benefits. They are almost all women, people of color and immigrants. They need the SEIU, the most effective union for low-paid workers in the health-care industry, to negotiate for them.

During 1998, the union grew by more than 185,000, more than the total membership of several international unions. It gained 64,000 through direct organizing and 121,000 through affiliations with other organizations.

The union organized 15,000 hospital workers, taking on the world's largest health care company, Columbia/HCA, in Las Vegas, where it won a landslide victory for 2,500 workers at Sunrise Hospital. It played a key role in winning collective bargaining rights for 140,000 public employees in Puerto Rico, setting the stage for a massive organizing campaign to enroll them into the union. It is now embarking on a campaign to organize the nation's doctors.

What the Union Does to Grow

It spends 47 percent of its $80 million annual budget on organizing. That does not include the 77 local unions that have committed a total of more than $30 million to organizing. This is in sharp contrast with most AFL-CIO affiliates, which budget less than 5 percent for recruiting new members.

SEIU has a total of 500 full-time organizers, plus support staff assigned to various campaigns across the country. Of these, some 300 organizers are employed by its local affiliates. Sixty-seven locals have organizing directors. Also, it uses an auxiliary force of 1,500 member-organizers who participated in the 1998 union-building campaigns.

It has a fertile field for organizing. Health care is perhaps the fastest-growing industry in the country, with about 12 million employees, of whom only one million are organized. The union has set its sights on some big targets, such as the 80,000 home-care workers in other California counties; 17,000 in Oregon and Washington State and 5,000 in New York State.

Because health care workers are mainly poorly-paid women and minorities, the union's organizing efforts take on the character of a moral crusade. In fact, the union can, on occasion, use the non-violent but disruptive tactics of the civil rights movement, as it did when it staged sit-ins in office buildings and blocked bridges in Washington in its struggle to gain union recognition for 2,000 janitors.

The union strategy calls for organizing an entire regional market, rather than one employer at a time. When it succeeds, as in the case of the Washington janitors, it can avoid employer competition to drag down wages and working conditions.

Andy Stern, Dynamic SEIU Leader

A major factor in SEIU's success is its president, Andrew Stern, whose aggressive and inspiring leadership made the "culture of organizing" a reality in the union. A former organizing director of the international union, Stern is the architect of the union's strategy of reaching out to millions of low-paid women and minorities in the service industries, groups that many labor leaders used to maintain could not be organized.

Stern, at age 47, is one of the youngest top leaders in the labor movement. He got his start as a social worker in Philadelphia in 1972, climbing up the union ladder to become SEIU president in 1997 to succeed John Sweeney, now AFL-CIO president.

With 500 organizers working full-time in the health-care industry, the SEIU is a model for many AFL-CIO affiliates that are struggling to gain members so they can maintain their economic strength and political influence. The union expects to make 1999 a banner organizing year, living up to its motto, "Leading the Way."

Return to Newsmagazine Cover Page