SEIU Local 521

UDR Story

• Free Speech in the SEIU and MEBA?

  SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review!

  Anything you say will be used against you

• SEIU rearranges 600,000 into mega locals

  SUBSCRIBE to Union Democracy Review!

  In June 2006, the SEIU International Executive Board decided to merge its California membership of 600,000 into new mega locals.

  After hearings where local officers could stake their claims, a two-person IEB subcommittee submitted detailed recommendations on how all those public service employees, public health employees, long term care workers, property service workers and private sector workers are to be reassigned into huge locals. Once the membership has digested this heavy dose, the report makes clear, there may be more to come.

• Quest for democracy persists inside SEIU

  While attention is riveted on the bitter battle in California between the Service Employees International Union and the new National Union of Healthcare Workers, many SEIU members who are not involved in that conflict are convinced that their road to union reform remains inside the SEIU in a continuing campaign to democratize the union. And they can report some successes, notably in Massachusetts Local 888 and in California Local 521.At the SEIU convention in June last year, rank and filers from several locals came together in a reform caucus, SMART --- for SEIU Members Active for Reform Today. The caucus organized as a permanent body after the convention.