Proposed Strategy

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Proposed Strategy for 2008-2012

Justice for All – Pass It On
Proposed recommendations for the SEIU 2008 Convention
Thousands of SEIU members and elected local union leaders have met over the past few years in committees and larger groups to analyze both our successful and less successful strategies, our structures, trends in our industries, and experiences of other unions and allied organizations.

Based on their research, much debate, extensive discussion about our future vision in each SEIU industry division, town hall meetings with members of local unions in every region, and input from other SEIU members, the following are the highlights of their proposed recommendations:


Members Lead Breakthrough, Union-Wide Strategy To Unite Working People to Change Lives
We have united over a million more workers with us since 1996, making us all stronger and helping current members achieve more at the bargaining table, in politics, and in our communities.
But 90 percent of healthcare and property services workers and two-thirds of public employees still don’t have a union.
We have a responsibility to help them raise their pay and benefit standards up, before employers use them to bring SEIU members’ standards down.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS:

  • Involve all local unions to jointly develop for the first time one national strategy for uniting more workers with us to win gains for all working people. We are most effective when we work together, blend our resources, and hold each other accountable for carrying out democratically made decisions, not when we act like a loose confederation of hundreds of separate organizations.
  • Focus more on larger campaigns that build our strength and unity. To win real gains for working people we need to unite more workers faster and on a much bigger scale.
  • Involve current members in helping more workers to unite with us for everyone’s benefit. Current members have a major stake in building our strength in numbers and can use our bargaining, political, and community strength to encourage employers to respect workers’ freedom to unite with us. Current members also provide the most effective way to discuss with nonunion workers why we should join together for everyone’s benefit.


Build a Responsive Union in Which More Workers Lead, Participate, and Decide

Every union member is entitled to a responsive union that provides prompt answers to his or her questions, professional representation, and support in his or her own language every day of the year -- 24/7.
In addition, we need a majority of members participating every year, 10 percent who are trained as leaders in SEIU’s efforts to achieve affordable health care, an economy that rewards work, and our other major goals. Today, as few as 2 percent of SEIU members are actively engaged in union strategies to achieve a better future for working people.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
  • Increase responsiveness by establishing Member Resource Centers. Local unions that have already done so are now providing higher quality service from trained staff that can give members information in their own language and help solve job-related problems, using 21st century technology. All members should have the opportunity to access Member Resource Centers 24/7, and local unions must ensure members receive professional and responsive representation on their worksite issues.
  • Focus staff not involved in the resource center on training worksite, community, bargaining, and political action leaders and involving more members in broader strategies that win for everyone – from uniting more workers in our union, to campaigns on political and legislative issues, to building community alliances that work for reliable, quality services for all.
  • Increase member engagement so that at least 10 percent of members play a leadership role in the union and a majority is involved in helping to achieve our core goals.
  • Free individual local unions from administrative tasks that can be pooled, if they choose, so locals can focus on member involvement, community alliances, and other vital work. With today’s technology, it is more efficient and cost effective for each local union to share privacy-protected common systems for tasks such as list management, accounting, dues processing, and information technology.

Strengthen Our Voice on Community and Political Issues to Seize Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity to Restore the American Dream

We have become the leading advocacy organization for working people on political and legislative issues.
With a new U.S. president and new Congress, we will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win affordable, quality healthcare; rebuild the American Dream and the middle class by passing the Employee Free Choice Act to restore the freedom to form a union; enact comprehensive immigration reform, and ensure quality public services with fair, reliable funding.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Put even more emphasis on holding public officials accountable to the promises they made when running for office and not just on electing pro-worker candidates and hoping they act in working people’s interests. We will allocate significant resources for community accountability issue campaigns and, where necessary, support alternative candidates to remind elected officials that they work for us.
  • Work to build a permanent pro-worker political majority through alliances with voters and organizations that share our goals.
  • Increase member participation in issue-based political work through canvassing, phone banking, voter registration, fund raising, and other activities.
  • Create a 21st century communications system that uses constantly evolving technology to ensure that the concerns of working people are heard throughout our society.
  • Reclaim Labor Day as a day to honor work and workers.