One of many largest and strongest U.S. unions is rejoining the AFL-CIO, giving the nation’s main labor federation a lift because it prepares for one more Donald Trump presidency.
The two million-member Service Staff Worldwide Union introduced Wednesday that it had determined to re-affiliate with the federation after a virtually 20-year absence. The SEIU will instantly turn out to be the largest union inside the AFL-CIO.
Liz Shuler, the federation’s president, referred to as it “a BFD.”
“You know that we always say ‘stronger together,’ right?” Shuler advised HuffPost. “This is an incredible time for us to be amassing our power, uniting and building our muscle together and really showing the power of solidarity. Because we want to make sure that workers continue to have their voices heard as we are about to enter into this new administration.”
The reunion comes at a crucial second for the U.S. labor motion.
Union membership has been declining for many years and now hovers close to a historic low of simply 6% within the non-public sector. And that pattern is unlikely to enhance: The incoming Trump administration will in all probability search to reverse the labor-friendly reforms underneath President Joe Biden, whereas a Republican-controlled Congress received’t make it any simpler for staff to type unions.
“This is an incredible time for us to be amassing our power.”
– AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler
SEIU President April Verrett mentioned discussions to rejoin the federation lengthy preceded Trump’s November victory, however that the election consequence helped reaffirm the rationale behind the transfer.
“It’s that much more important to come together, to organize workers, to build real power, because that’s our best offense in this moment,” Verrett mentioned.
The AFL-CIO will not be a union itself — it’s an alliance of 61 unions representing roughly 15 million staff. It lends assist to member unions’ campaigns and advocates for organized labor in Washington as a significant Democratic ally. It’s funded by per-capita taxes that unions pay primarily based on their membership numbers.
The SEIU might be extremely influential inside the federation as a result of its measurement. It has grown into the second-largest union within the U.S. after many years of organizing staff in well being care, youngster care, custodial work and different service fields. It’s identified for its revolutionary labor campaigns — just like the Combat for $15 motion in quick meals, which helped spur minimum-wage raises in cities and states across the nation — in addition to its progressive politics.
Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures
The reaffiliation means the AFL-CIO can extra instantly pitch in on SEIU campaigns, together with a high-profile one at Starbucks. That effort is led by Staff United, an SEIU affiliate, and has led to greater than 500 unionized shops nationwide on the espresso chain, making it one of the vital carefully watched organizing pushes in many years.
The reunion may additionally assist mend previous rifts inside the labor motion.
The SEIU was a part of an unpleasant break up from the AFL-CIO in 2005, when it joined the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Meals and Business Staff and others in forming a rival federation.
The breakaway faction mentioned the AFL-CIO was focusing an excessive amount of on politics and never doing sufficient to prepare new staff. The AFL-CIO’s then-president, John Sweeney, himself a former SEIU chief, referred to as the defection a “grievous insult” to the idea of solidarity.
These unions that left the AFL-CIO have since come again into the fold, apart from the Teamsters, which stay unaffiliated.
The SEIU’s return was years within the making, in keeping with Shuler and Verrett.
Shuler mentioned she wished to “form a new relationship” with the union after she took the helm on the federation in 2021, changing the late Richard Trumka. Verrett mentioned she and her predecessor at SEIU, Mary Kay Henry, acquired a inexperienced gentle from their board to enter formal talks about rejoining the AFL-CIO in 2023.
“It was a natural evolution out of many years of conversations,” Shuler mentioned. “We think this is going to be a big game-changer for our movement and for working people broadly.”
