Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States (including Puerto Rico), and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: health care (over half of members work in the health care field), including hospital, home care and nursing home workers; public services (local and state government employees); and property services (including janitors, security officers and food service workers).
SEIU is the fastest growing labor union in the United States and has over 150 local branches. It is affiliated with the Change to Win Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress. SEIU is based out of Washington, D.C., and has several internal divisions which include: Communications, Government Affairs, New Media, Organizing, Political, Global Strength, Pension/Benefits, Community Strength, Research, and Legal.
The union states that its top priorities are to stand up for working families to help bring economic relief to millions across the country, fix the nation's "broken health care system," and fight to guarantee workers' rights on the job. SEIU is sometimes referred to as the "purple ocean" at political events because of the union's recognizable purple shirts. The union is also known for its Justice for Janitors program and strong support for Democratic candidates. It spent $28 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, making it the "organization that spent the most to help Barack Obama get elected president."
Read more about Service Employees International Union: History, Presidents of SEIU, SEIU International Leadership, Recent Organizing, Notable Locals, In Popular Culture, Controversy, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words service, employees and/or union:
“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Exporting Church employees to Latin America masks a universal and unconscious fear of a new Church. North and South American authorities, differently motivated but equally fearful, become accomplices in maintaining a clerical and irrelevant Church. Sacralizing employees and property, this Church becomes progressively more blind to the possibilities of sacralizing person and community.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)