Service Employees International Union - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

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SEIU's Los Angeles Justice for Janitors campaign was portrayed in the motion picture Bread and Roses.

On the popular long-running television show ER, the service employee Jerry Markovic (played by Abraham Benrubi) often wears an SEIU t-shirt, reflecting SEIU representation of hospital service workers in the United States (approximately 250,000).

SEIU's Popular Media Organizing Program is an initiative to connect popular culture and the labor movement's platform with support from the creative arts. In 2008, SEIU partnered with Manifest Hope: DC, MoveOn PAC and Obey Giant to launch a nationwide online contest to gather the best artwork celebrating the grassroots campaign that helped elect Barack Obama as president. The winning artwork was displayed to DC area residents and millions of people expected to gather in Washington for Barack Obama's inauguration. SEIU has also produced a "Social Justice" calendar featuring the work of Manifest Hope artists in 2009 and 2010.

The non-profit 501c3 Bread and Roses program started by 1199SEIU was founded in 1978 as a cultural resource for union members and students in New York who, for the most part, are not reached by traditional arts institutions and programs. Since that time, the Bread and Roses program has spread widely beyond the New York City area. In 2006, “Unseen America”—a book of photography taken by 1199SEIU members and other workers—was published, with New York’s Guggenheim Museum hosting a party to celebrate Bread and Roses’ “Unseen America” project, which was one of dozens of events held in cities around the U.S.

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