Stronger Together: The Story of seiu (review)

The Service Employees’ International Union (seiu) has become famous for doing things its own way, for calling on the labour movement to shed the positions of the past in pursuit of a more fluid, relevant models of organizing, unionism, and progressive politics. With that in mind, is almost a surprise it has issued something as traditional, as 20th-century, as the glossy in-house union history, packed with inspiring photos, boilerplate inspirational prose, praise for leaders and jeers for enemies. However, much has changed since 1992, when the union last issued a history. The union has added about a million members since 1997, for a total of 2.1 million in the US and Canada, often under controversial circumstances. Stronger Together: The Story of seiu is evidently an effort to communicate the seiu story and message to these new members; however, seiu workers would be well-advised to look elsewhere to learn about their union. Workers and observers of seiu, however, will find much of interest here, although not in the way the author intended.

The book’s content is heavily weighted towards the past two decades, during which seiu grew exponentially and became a significant force within the labour movement. Indeed, only 24 of the book’s 265 pages of history concern the union’s existence before 1990, while 180 are devoted to the period since 2000. Instead, the decisions and contests that fuelled seiu’s spectacular growth are recounted in detail. Famous battles like the California “Justice for Janitors” fight and the battle to organize service workers at the University of Miami in the face of vigorous resistance from former Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala are celebrated. In places, the work seiu members do is lauded, particularly in chapters on health work and the courage shown by seiu workers helping to rescue others during the 9/11 attacks, sometimes at the cost of their own lives.

seiu members reading Stronger Together will also get a brimming cup of praise for union leadership. Several chapters focus exclusively on seiu conventions and the strategy, mission statements, eleven principles, New Strength Unity Plans, Seven Strengths and other lofty initiatives arising from them. The message is consistent: seiu has transcended the old, excessively confrontational form of worker activism, and found a new, better path, based on providing solutions for employers in the workplace, and achieving political change by building coalitions with nontraditional partners, including corporate leaders and Republicans. The approving quote from Business Week magazine “often at odds then with unions” used to praise early president William McFetridge is an early and characteristic example of this orientation.

In fact, the book is probably most valuable and revealing as an example of seiu’s unique vocabulary and outlook. After all, it’s a rare union history that features an entire chapter on branding. Workers do not “join” seiu or “organize”; they “unite with” the union. This rhetorical device allows seiu to dodge some of the tricky questions about how the union’s growth has been achieved. In many cases, adding new workers is a top-down process that is not driven by the concerns and priorities of the workers themselves, but by a top-level negotiation between seiu management and large employers. These negotiations produce agreements that transcend neutralit y agreements by allowing companies to decide which workplaces can be organized by the union, and which workers will not have the opportunity to “unite” with seiu.

The union’s aggressive approach to growing its membership has often also produced unhappiness with the resulting contracts. Workers protest that their issues have been ignored in favour of simply getting a deal done that allows seiu to collect dues and pad member numbers. Pressed on the issue of union democracy in 2008, Stern dismissed criticism by saying “These workers have no unions; that’s where we start from.” That vision – getting a guaranteed slice rather than fighting for a loaf – is central to Stronger Together, which approvingly quotes Stern’s philosophy as outlined in his book...