Service Employees International Union Research Articles

College Athlete Unionization

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston has opened the door to serious consideration of the potential for college athlete unionization and collective bargaining. The ruling, highlighted by Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, suggests collective bargaining as a potential solution to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (“NCAA’s”) antitrust vulnerabilities. This Article delves into the initial legal and strategic questions surrounding the prospect of unionization, focusing particularly on NCAA Division I football and basketball, due to their significant revenue generation making them prime candidates for unionization efforts. The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) is positioned to play a central role in the unionization attempts at private universities and potentially influence public university efforts. A recent NLRB complaint against the University of Southern California (“USC”) accusing the institution of misclassifying student athletes as non-employees will answer some important labor law questions that will likely guide future unionization efforts. Moreover, the Service Employees International Union’s (“SEIU’s”) successful union election bid involving the Dartmouth College men’s basketball team represents a significant step forward, marking the potential beginning of college athlete unionization. This Article provides a comprehensive examination of the issue, starting with the NLRB’s involvement and its pivotal decision regarding the Northwestern University case. It proceeds to dissect the Supreme Court’s Alston decision’s implications for unionization and collective bargaining. It further explores the complex labor and employment law intricacies, such as the definitions of employee and employer, appropriate bargaining units, and the NLRB’s jurisdiction over public universities. Finally, it theorizes on how unionization may unfold, outlining possible challenges, pitfalls, and the expected advantages for college athletes through collective bargaining.

Congress to Investigate Union Corruption

Virginia Foxx (R‐NC), chairwoman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives, has sent written inquiries to multiple unions in an effort “[t]o ensure workers represented by labor organizations are shielded from malfeasance by union officials.” With respect to the Service Employees International Union, Rep. Foxx wrote: “A prominent example of this corruption is related to your union's own activities. On March 10, 2023, Attia Little, former union property services division operations manager, was sentenced to 24 months in prison followed by 24 months of supervised probation and ordered to pay $399,450 in restitution. Ms. Little pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $500,000 from the union, which she used for parties, trips, furniture, and other personal expenses.”

Having a Say in Patient Care: Factors Associated with High and Low Voice among Home Care Workers

ObjectivesTo identify factors associated with high and low “voice”—or level of input in patient care decisions—among home care workers (HCWs), an often marginalized workforce that provides care in the home to older adults and those with chronic conditions. DesignWe conducted a secondary analysis of data from a cross-sectional survey assessing experiences of HCWs in caring for adults with heart failure. The survey measured HCWs’ voice using a validated, 5-item instrument. Setting and ParticipantsThe survey was conducted virtually from June 2020 to July 2021 in partnership with the 1199 Service Employees International Union (1199SEIU) Training and Employment Funds, a union labor management fund. English- or Spanish-speaking HCWs employed by a certified or licensed home care agency in New York, NY, were eligible. MethodsHCW voice was the main outcome of interest, which we assessed by tertiles (low, medium, and high, with medium as the referent group). Using multinominal logistic regression, we calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs for the relationship between participant characteristics and low and high levels of voice. ResultsThe 261 HCWs had a mean age of 48.4 years (SD 11.9), 96.6% were female, and 44.2% identified as Hispanic. A total of 38.7% had low voice, 37.9% had medium voice, and 23.4% had high voice. In the adjusted model, factors associated with low voice included Spanish as a primary language (OR 3.71, P = .001), depersonalization-related burnout (OR 1.14, P = .04), and knowing which doctor to call (OR 0.19, P < .001). Factors associated with high voice included Spanish as a primary language (OR 2.61, P = .04) and job satisfaction (OR 1.22, P = .001). Conclusions and ImplicationsOrganizational factors such as team communication practices—including among non-English speakers—may play an important role in HCW voice. Improving HCW voice may help retain HCWs in the workforce, but future research is needed to evaluate this.

When Unions Organize Workers and Capitalists: Union Growth, the Trigger Mechanism and Service Employees International Union's Justice for Janitors

This article contributes to the study of union renewal. It considers the case of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ which has grown significantly during a period when the overall labor movement has declined. Local 32BJ's organizing success is explored focusing on the trigger tactic, an overlooked component of SEIU's Justice for Janitors campaigns. Trigger mechanisms take the competitive pressures companies face seriously, recognizing that unionization has costs, and that increased costs are a problem for an individual firm if its competitors are non-union. The trigger tactic binds companies in a given market together to ensure that the bulk of employers go union at once, or not all. This tactic knits together the material interests of workers in different companies and appears to reduce employer opposition to unions. Given its success, SEIU's whole union organizing with a trigger mechanism may offer a potential model for renewal for unions organizing in similar industries.

The Effect Of Labor Unions On Nursing Home Compliance With OSHA's Workplace Injury And Illness Reporting Requirement.

All US nursing homes are required to report workplace injury and illness data to the Occupational Safety And Health Administration (OSHA). Nevertheless, the compliance rate for US nursing homes during the period 2016-21 was only 40percent. We examined whether unionization increases the probability that nursing homes will comply with that requirement. Using a difference-in-differences design and proprietary data on union status from the Service Employees International Union for all forty-eight continental US states from the period 2016-21, we found that two years after unionization, nursing homes were 31.1percentage points more likely than nonunion nursing homes to report workplace injury and illness data to OSHA. Data on injuries occurring in specific workplaces play a central role in injury prevention. Further unionization could help improve workplace safety in nursing homes, a sector with one of the highest occupational injury and illness rates in the US.

“You'll Never Walk Alone”: School Crossing Guard Associations and Labor Feminism in the Postwar United States

Abstract In the years immediately following World War II, cities and townships across the United States implemented public safety programs to oversee road crossing for children outside schools. The crossing guards assigned to coordinate safe passage at busy intersections were primarily women and, as part-time workers, were a distinct sector of an expanding public sector workforce. This article highlights the origins of these public safety initiatives and how crossing guards formed associations in the 1950s and 1960s to secure economic improvements. These independent organizations articulated an important variant of labor feminism in the early postwar era, and attention to the agendas put forward by these women opens new insight into this aspect of working-class activism. Into the 1970s, many guard associations merged with AFL-CIO unions, especially the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), becoming a catalyst for a range of programs that prioritized the needs of working women in collective bargaining agreements. The article concludes with an overview of the issues crossing guards and their organizations face in an age of increasing austerity in the new century.

Frustrated union workers plan brief strikes in Connecticut

Angry over stagnant wages and a lagging funding commitment from the state of Connecticut, union leaders representing mental health workers planned brief strikes in New London and Middletown, the Shoreline Times reported last month. Union employees at Sound Community Services in New London and Gilead Community Services in Middletown participated in the strikes, which the District 1199 Service Employees International Union confirmed would be limited to three days. Some of the participating employees said their salaries had not been increased in several years, while others said they cannot afford to carry health insurance. The employees also suggested that management in the organizations does not do enough to protect clinical staff from abusive patients. Mental health workers in Connecticut have asked state lawmakers to increase funding for the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services by 8%, a move they say would allow for better wages and adequate staffing in the provider agencies. The CEO of Sound Community Services suggested last month that union proposals to create a pathway to salaries of $20 an hour are not realistic given the realities of state funding. “It would essentially put us out of business,” Gino DeMaio told the Shoreline Times. District 1199 union organizer Kindra Fontes‐May said, “Inflation, gas and rent go up every year, but wages in the mental health field have historically remained stagnant. The ability for workers to fight for more is key to raising standards across the state and lifting workers out of poverty.” Management and employees in the two organizations appear to agree that more support from the legislature would help to remedy the situation. However, union members are quick to point out that even in years of level‐funding from the state, management leaders have awarded themselves raises.

Richard L. Trumka: A Labor Leader in Troubled Times

Richard L. Trumka: A Labor Leader in Troubled Times

A defining battle: the fight for $15 campaign and labor advocacy in the U.S

ABSTRACT Notions of decline dominate scholarship on workers in the contemporary U.S. Labor has been pictured as “flat on its back,” framed by a narrative of loss that is linked to the long fall in union density. Through a detailed examination of the Fight for $15 campaign, this article challenges this narrative. Launched in 2012, within four years the labor-based drive had won over $68 billion in increased pay, helping some 22 million workers. By 2021, eight states plus the District of Columbia had pledged to increase their hourly minimum wage to $15 or more, as had numerous cities and leading corporations, including Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart. The $15 wage had also been awarded to all 390,000 federal contractors. Moving beyond the emphasis on density, the article views Fight for $15 in the broader context of labor’s advocacy for all workers. While often pictured as new, Fight for $15 drew on long-term precedents, including growing income inequality, increasing links between unions and community groups, the steady growth of the Service Employees International Union – the campaign’s key backer - and extensive groundwork by organized labor. Overall, Fight for $15 demonstrates that workers still had clout, both at the grassroots and national level.

The Precarious Work of Care

This article examines a series of Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU) campaigns for protection from needlestick injuries, led by women health-care workers, from the dawn of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s through battles over the 1992 OSHA standard on blood-borne pathogens and the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act of 2000. We argue that these campaigns developed in response to the growing physical precarity of women health-care workers in the era of “managed care,” caused by the intensification and flexibilization of health-care labor and the deregulation and underfunding of OSHA and the CDC. We show how women workers challenged employers, OSHA, and elected federal officials to address workplace health hazards, through unions like SEIU and women’s, gay rights, and public health organizations. More broadly, we argue that the occupational hazards of health-care workers are a crucial but underexplored facet of workplace studies and the history of women workers in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Experiences of Home Health Care Workers in New York City During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic

Home health care workers care for community-dwelling adults and play an important role in supporting patients with confirmed and suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who remain at home. These workers are mostly middle-aged women and racial/ethnic minorities who typically earn low wages. Despite being integral to patient care, these workers are often neglected by the medical community and society at large; thus, developing a health care system capable of addressing the COVID-19 crisis and future pandemics requires a better understanding of the experiences of home health care workers. To understand the experiences of home health care workers caring for patients in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. From March to April 2020, a qualitative study with 1-to-1 semistructured interviews of 33 home health care workers in New York City was conducted in partnership with the 1199SEIU Home Care Industry Education Fund, a benefit fund of the 1199 Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers East, the largest health care union in the US. Purposeful sampling was used to identify and recruit home health care workers. Audio-recorded interviews were professionally transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory. Major themes and subthemes were identified. In total, 33 home health care workers employed by 24 unique home care agencies across the 5 boroughs of New York City participated. Participants had a mean (SD) age of 47.6 (14.0) years, 32 (97%) were women, 21 (64%) were Black participants, and 6 (18%) were Hispanic participants. Five major themes emerged: home health care workers (1) were on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic but felt invisible; (2) reported a heightened risk for virus transmission; (3) received varying amounts of information, supplies, and training from their home care agencies; (4) relied on nonagency alternatives for support, including information and supplies; and (5) were forced to make difficult trade-offs in their work and personal lives. In this qualitative analysis, home health care workers reported providing frontline essential care, often at personal risk, during the COVID-19 pandemic. They experienced challenges that exacerbated the inequities they face as a marginalized workforce. Interventions and policies to better support these frontline health care professionals are urgently needed.

A successful union in an era of decline: interrogating the growth of the Service Employees International Union, 1980-1995

ABSTRACT Between 1980 and 1995, while John Sweeney was president, the membership of the Service Employees International Union rose from around 600,000 to over 1.1 million. It continued to increase after 1995, making the SEIU the largest and fastest-growing union in the country. This growth was remarkable because it occurred at a terrible time for unions, one where the overwhelming emphasis – in both the media and academic scholarship – was on labor’s decline. While scholars have noted the SEIU’s growth, there has been little sustained analysis of how it was achieved. Existing accounts also posit growth largely as a reflection of the union’s organizing prowess. Drawing on the SEIU’s papers and interviews, this article argues that the union’s growth under Sweeney did reflect its commitment to organizing. At the same time, the article makes a fresh contribution by showing that the SEIU also grew because of lesser-known factors, including the affiliation of independent unions and legislative advances in public sector rights. The SEIU also benefited from operating in a growing sector of the economy, where low-paid workers needed unions. These conclusions are developed through analysis of “flagship” drives at Beverly Nursing homes, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and the high-profile “Justice for Janitors” campaign.

The Recent Evolution of Wisconsin Public Worker Unionism since Act 10

This paper examines the experience of four major public sector unions in Wisconsin since the passage of Wisconsin Act 10 in 2011. The four unions are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT-Wisconsin), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), an affiliate of the National Education Association. Wisconsin’s prior legal framework for public sector collective bargaining is explained and compared to the new highly restrictive framework established by Act 10. That new framework, established by state legislation, is analyzed, as are its impacts on the membership, revenues, structures, and practices of the four unions. In general, we find the impacts to have been very dramatic, with a loss of active union membership averaging approximately 70 percent overall, and concomitant dramatic losses in union revenues and power. These shocks have engendered the restructuring of two of the unions examined, the downsizing of the third, and the de facto exiting from the state’s public sector in another. There have also been significant changes in representation practices in one union, but less so in the others. We conclude by discussing best union practices based on this experience, as well as considering what the recent public sector union history in Wisconsin may portend for public worker union membership nationwide, since the issuing of the Janus Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Occupational Injury Among Janitors: Injury Incidence, Severity, and Associated Risk Factors.

Determine injury incidence and severity and potential associated risk factors for injury, among janitors. Questionnaires were disseminated to 1200 full-time janitors in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26 union; 390 responded and provided information on their injury experiences and exposures, based on personal characteristics and work-related activities. Multivariable analyses, including bias adjustment, were implemented using directed acyclic graphs to determine potential risk. Among the janitors, 34% reported experiencing at least one injury; 16% of cases resulted in hospital admittance. Significantly increased risks were identified for age, ethnicity, shift start time, and physician-diagnosed depression. Knowledge of specific risk and protective factors is valuable, and can serve as a basis for further in-depth studies and inform the development of targeted intervention strategies aimed to reduce occurrence of these injuries.

“It's Like They Forget That the Word ‘Health’ Is in ‘Home Health Aide’”: Understanding the Perspectives of Home Care Workers Who Care for Adults With Heart Failure

BackgroundHome care workers (HCWs) increasingly provide long‐term and posthospitalization care for community‐dwelling adults with heart failure (HF). They observe, assist, and advise these patients, yet few studies have examined their role in HF. As the foundation for future interventions, we sought to understand the perspectives of HCWs caring for adults with HF.Methods and ResultsWe conducted 8 focus groups in partnership with the Home Care Industry Education Fund, a benefit fund of the 1199 Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers East, the largest healthcare union in the United States. English‐ and Spanish‐speaking HCWs with HF clients were eligible to participate. Data were analyzed thematically. Forty‐six HCWs employed by 21 unique home care agencies participated. General and HF‐specific themes emerged. Generally, HCWs (1) feel overworked and undervalued; (2) find communication and care to be fragmented; (3) are dedicated to clients and families but are caught in the middle; and, despite this, (4) love their job. With respect to HF, HCWs (1) find it frightening and unpredictable; (2) are involved in HF self‐care without any HF training; and (3) find the care plan problematic.ConclusionsAlthough frequently involved in HF self‐care, most HCWs have not received HF training. In addition, many felt poorly supported by other healthcare providers and the care plan, especially when their clients’ symptoms worsened. Interventions that provide HF‐specific training and aim to improve communication between members of the home health care team may enhance HCWs’ ability to care for adults with HF and potentially lead to better patient outcomes.

Labor under Fire: A History of the AFL-CIO since 1979 by Timothy Minchin

Labor under Fire: A History of the AFL-CIO since 1979 by Timothy Minchin

Inclusive unionism: Strategies for retaining idealism in the Service Employees International Union

Despite the vast amount of scholarship covering the progressive turn in unions in the US and in Europe and a widespread recognition that it has been driven by the staff working for reformed unions there has been no examination of the causes, beliefs, and identities that new generations of staff bring into the labor movement. The question asked in this article is how personal projects – defined as a motivational narrative for social action – held by progressively minded union staff can impact inclusiveness in unions. A key focus is how staff's personal projects interact with organizational structures and practices. The study finds that personal projects vary in terms of the way that staff construct role boundaries in their jobs to invest more in certain roles than, others which also affected their investment in skills development. These strategies have theoretical implications for understanding the nexus between staff careers and organizational outcomes in unions in particular and in ‘social movement organizations’ more generally. Results also have practical implications for skills development and knowledge transfers within and across organizations, as well as for union capacities to deal with competing goals.

Trade union renewal and ‘organizing from below’ in Germany: Institutional constraints, strategic dilemmas and organizational tensions

Organizing is widely discussed as a remedy for continued union decline. Originating in the liberal market industrial relations systems of the Anglo-Saxon world, the ‘organizing’ strategy is increasingly discussed in countries like Germany, traditionally known for consensual industrial relations and multi-employer collective bargaining. To study whether and how ‘organizing’ is translated in union organizations operating in a different institutional context, we study the link between organizational transformation and institutions in IG Metall in Germany, which was been influenced by the American Service Employees International Union (SEIU). We find a German variety of organizing rather than a mere copying of ‘best practice’: the union’s approach is based on institutional and organizational structures as a resource and constraint.

The Fight for $15: The Right Wage for a Working America by David Rolf

Reviewed by: The Fight for $15: The Right Wage for a Working America by David Rolf Dave Bush David Rolf, The Fight for $15: The Right Wage for a Working America ( New York: The New Press 2016) How did the American Dream, where hard-working Americans could attain good jobs and a pathway to middle-class stability, turn into a nightmare of perverse inequality and precarious work? And what are workers and unions going to do to put workers on the road from poverty to prosperity? These are the two questions David Rolf sets out to answer in his book on the Fight for $15. Rolf, the president of the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 775 in Seattle, makes the case that raising the minimum wage to $15 is one of the defining working-class issues of our time. The book is structured into three parts: explaining the rise of low-wage work and inequality, telling the story of how workers and unions are organizing the Fight for $15 campaign, and debunking common myths the campaign is bumping up against. Rolf's examination of the rise of inequality and precarious jobs in the United States treads familiar territory. Hewing closely to the analysis of Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich, Rolf dates "the war on the middle class" to the mid-1970s. He argues that right-wing ideas, like tax cuts and deregulation, began to take hold amongst segments of the working class spurned by rising unemployment and inflation. The right wing through the 1980s and 1990s was thus able to further their longstanding dream of eroding the power of unions and working standards. The decline of the middle class was followed by the rise of "new work" which is [End Page 279] fissured, flexible, and insecure. Workers are atomized in the workplace and their collective power and solidarity have been eroded. Rolf paints a damning picture of work today, with its proliferation of subcontracting, part-time, temporary, and freelance work. Rolf also notes there are now more workers in the United States who have no legal right to form a union than workers who do. Rolf's analysis of the changing workplace is useful, though it underplays the role the attack on the welfare state has played in undermining workers' confidence and security. For instance, the rise in post-secondary education fees for students has been a major reason why part-time work has proliferated. Likewise, the gutting of welfare entitlements in the 1980s and 1990s fed a sense of insecurity amongst low-wage workers. This erosion of social programs and public infrastructure contributed to a sense of isolation and economic fear amongst the working class. The political defeats suffered by the working class are not only as important as the setbacks endured by workers in the workplace, they are interlinked. Understanding that the ideological shift in workers' confidence and sense of collective power is the result of both the restructuring of employment relations and political defeat is important to grasp the true measure and impact of new work. Workplaces and work are changing in the 21st century, but as Kim Moody and Kevin Doogan have written it is important not to overstate this claim or assume the working class is either a moribund concept or a powerless political force. In his most recent book, On New Terrain (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017), Moody argues that precarious work did grow as lean production methods were ramped up in the early 1980s, but precarious work has not expanded further over the last 30 years. Workers feel more insecure and wages have stagnated, but the nature of work has not been dramatically upended over the last several decades. The most interesting aspect of Rolf's book is when he shifts gears from a broader analysis of the American economy to a narrative about how a $15 minimum wage was won in Sea-Tac and Seattle. Sea-Tac, a small suburb outside of Seattle that includes the city's airport, was the first jurisdiction to enact a $15 minimum wage in the United States. The airport, which once provided many middle-class jobs, is now the site of many outsourced low...

What Is the Future of “Alt-Labor” Groups?

Management Report for Nonunion OrganizationsVolume 40, Issue 5 p. 2-8 News What Is the Future of “Alt-Labor” Groups? First published: 10 April 2017 https://doi.org/10.1002/mare.30272Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Worker advocacy groups that aren't unions are often called alt-labor. They have the goal of improving working conditions, but more often through political and community pressure rather than through the usual path of National Labor Relations Board elections. Although their names and specific issues change, these groups are continuing to develop. Management views the so-called “independent” alt-labor groups as proxies for Big Labor, as a way for unions to gain information that can be used for more traditional organizing in industries such as food service, retail, and other largely nonunionized workforces. The largest and best known of these alt-labor groups, OUR Walmart and Fight for $15, were, in fact, funded by the nation's largest union, the Service Employees International Union. It has said it no longer funds OUR Walmart but is active in Fight for $15. Volume40, Issue5May 2017Pages 2-8 RelatedInformation