Origins
In 1971, 61-year-old George Hardy was elected president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Under Hardy, SEIU's health care and public employee divisions saw rapid growth. Much of the membership growth, however, came through affiliation rather than new member organizing. Hardy viewed the fast-growing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) as SEIU's chief competitor. AFSCME had grown from a mere 100,000 members in 1951 to 500,000 members in 1972, and had elected a dynamic and aggressive new leader, 45-year-old Jerry Wurf, in 1964. Not only was AFSCME's growth substantial, its demographics matched those of SEIU's: At least two-thirds of the rival union's members were blue-collar workers, and a fifth of them worked in hospitals and nursing homes. To counter AFSCME's rapid growth, Hardy adopted a strategy of affiliating existing unions rather than organizing unorganized workers. Between 1971 and 1980, SEIU affiliated 22 independent unions. Merger and affiliation accounted for 230,000 new members from 1971 to 1985, and virtually all of the union's growth from 1980 to 1984.
One of SEIU's major growth spurts came in 1978, when it raided the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA). In existence since 1910, CSEA had won representation rights for New York State's 140,000 public employees after the state passed a public employee collective bargaining law in 1968. Structured like an association rather than a union, CSEA hesitated to engage in militant labor action or strike, and yet it had a rocky relationship with the state: The union struck for two days at the beginning of April 1972 and won a 5.5 percent pay hike. But the strike and dissatisfaction with CSEA's leadership led some CSEA members to ask for representation by SEIU. With Hardy's strong backing, the newly formed union was able to gather enough signatures on petitions to trigger a representational vote in two of the four units where workers were represented by CSEA, but SEIU lost the vote by a 3-to-1 margin in December 1972. A second strike planned by CSEA leaders was called off after delegates overwhelmingly repudiated a strike resolution supported by the union's leaders. The internal strife led SEIU to once again challenge CSEA for a large unit of New York State public employees. In an election held December 5, 1975, an SEIU-led coalition which included the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Laborers' International Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and several building trades unions was defeated by CSEA, 10,858 to 10,348 with 1,015 voting for neither union. With neither side winning a majority, a second election was held the first week of February 1976, which CSEA won (14,321 to 10,184).
But Hardy continued to raid CSEA. CSEA leaders initially sought protection by affiliating with AFSCME. Article 20 of the AFL-CIO constitution prohibits affiliates from raiding one another's members, and an affiliation with AFSCME would have won CSEA relief from the raids. But CSEA delegates formally barred their leaders from seeking an affiliation with AFSCME in March 1976. CSEA's contract with the state of New York expired in 1977. Although CSEA leaders once more proposed a strike, the union settled for a 14 percent pay raise in April 1977. Hardy, convinced SEIU could successfully raid CSEA, conducted secret polls which showed that deep unrest in the professional, scientific, and technical (PS&T) unit. Working only with the AFT, SEIU once more obtained enough petitions to challenge CSEA representation in the PS&T unit. The raid was successful, and the coalition (known as the Public Employees Federation) won, 15,062 to 12,259. Hardy and AFT leader Albert Shanker hoped to raid CSEA further, but CSEA affiliated with AFSMCE on April 21, 1978. The affiliation made AFSCME the largest affiliate in the AFL-CIO.
CSEA challenged the SEIU/AFT coalition's victory, however. CSEA attorneys alleged that nearly 5,000 of the signatures on the petition forcing an election were fraudulent. A New York Supreme Court (the state's trial court of general jurisdiction) initially dismissed the suit, but it was reinstated by a state appellate court. As the lawsuit progressed, CSEA won a new three-year contract which included a 7 percent pay hike in the first year. But the new union, now called the Public Employees Federation, ultimately prevailed in the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the state of New York) on March 28, 1979. PEF subsequently negotiated a controversial contract which gave union members a 36 percent pay increase over three years. Submitted to the members without the approval of PEF's executive council, the contract was overwhelmingly approved by PEF members on December 6, 1979.
Read more about this topic: Public Employees Federation
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