Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 2015 is a Los Angeles-based local union of the SEIU, representing long-term care workers. Representing over 400,000 home care and nursing home workers throughout California, it is the largest union in the state and the largest long-term care worker union in the United States. [1] It advocates for left-of-center policies regarding healthcare, housing, education, critical race theory, and environmentalism. [2]
Background
SEIU Local 2015 was created in June 2015 to unite long-term care workers from members of California United Homecare Workers (CUHW) and the SEIU Local 521, United Healthcare Workers, and United Long-Term Care Workers. [3]
The newly formed union began by assigning provisional officers to go on a “Listening Tour” of California, interviewing union members around the state to gather information on the most important issues the union would have to focus on. The Advisory Committee worked on its mission statement, constitution, and bylaws throughout 2015 and held its first leadership assembly in February 2016, gathering 2,000 member leaders from across California to help define what the union’s priorities ought to be. [4]
Local 2015 had its constitution and bylaws ratified in March 2017, cementing its priorities, including its avowal to advocate for left-of-center healthcare and housing policies, educational opportunities, racial justice, and environmentalism. [5]
In August 2017, the union elected its first officers and executive board members, establishing for the first time its representative executive board. It conducted another “Listening Tour” of the state in July 2019 and formally made a pledge to become an “anti-racist” organization in January 2020. [6]
Initiatives
Among the SEIU 2015’s founding documents was its Organizational Priorities, which outline specific aims and policies on its agenda. These included: holding nursing home companies accountable for quality care and safe staffing, expanding rent control laws, repealing laws against expanding fair housing policies, pursuing just immigration laws that “value all lives” by creating an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, going after corporations for violating its undefined standards of environmentalism, and advocating for a practice of anti-racism that intersects with anti-ableism. [7]
Furthermore, the document states the Local’s intentions to represent all California care workers, even if they are not yet members, and to start a movement that disrupts the “unjust status quo” and causes “transformational change towards a more just society for all.” [8]
In August 2017, the union announced its “Justice Agenda,” an initiative to advocate for the elimination of cash bail. [9] In an accompanying Medium post, the Local protests that it is unjust for “low-income defendants, who are not considered a threat to public safety” to be forced to “languish in jail until their case is adjudicated” while wealthy defendants can pay their bail “regardless of any public safety threat.” [10]
The blogpost encouraged readers to contact the State Speaker office and tell them to pass SB10, which would rid California’s pretrial release system of its bail system and replace it with a “risk-based release and detention system.” [11] The bill, which was signed into law in August 2018, was ultimately repealed by a referendum in 2020. [12]
In January 2020, the SEIU 2015 launched its “Justice for All” platform and pledged to be a committed “anti-racist organization,” seeking to incorporate anti-racism “into everything the union does.” [13] [14] The platform includes its resolution to make employers raise the living standards of long term care workers through bargaining and elections, provide its members with the support system needed to fight for “economic and racial equity,” and to advocate for three main initiatives: “Long-Term Care for All,” “Democracy for All,” and “Unions for All.” [15]
Through its “Democracy for All” program the union seeks to “dismantle the policies, systems, and structures that prevent participation” and the “structural racism that denies us of our rights.” To do this, it aims not only to educate its member leaders in political activism but to train long-term care workers to run for political office. Additionally, it advocates for voter registration and mobilization efforts to ensure that pro-SEIU candidates win elections at the state and national levels. [16] “Democracy For All.” SEIU 2015. Accessed September 26, 2021. https://www.seiu2015.org/justice-for-all/democracy-for-all/.[/note]
Its call for “Long-Term Care for All” involves advocacy for a public health care system and safety net for workers, including retirement security and stronger worker safety laws, to benefit caregivers in particular. Its identified means for bringing this about include centralizing labor unions’ bargaining power in the state of California, protect disability entitlement programs, find other sources for funding besides the state general fund, and hold companies accountable that profit off long-term care services. [17]
Its “Unions for All” initiative seeks to increase its member count, change labor laws to increase bargaining power, contribute to building the labor movement, train activists, and advocate for increased wages and benefits. [18]
Activity
By June 2016, SEIU Local 2015 was representing about 380,000 long-term care workers. The Local mobilized these members to help out in the effort to pass the statewide Fair Wage Act to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2021, making California the first such state legislation. By October 2016, its members convinced the California governor to reverse cuts to In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), a state program which pays care workers who take care of people that cannot afford such services. [19]
SEIU Local 2015 contributed to the effort to pass SB97, a piece of state legislation designed to establish new staffing laws for nursing homes in line with the labor movement’s standards for safe staffing ratios. The bill was signed into law in July 2018. [20]
In June 2019, the Local advocated for and succeeded in convincing California Governor Gavin Newsom to pass an executive order for a “Master Plan for Aging,” involving a conference of stakeholders who formulated it together. The Master Plan for Aging (MPA) has five “bold” goals, 23 long-term strategies, and over 100 initiatives set to be implemented within two years. The bold goals are: Housing for All Ages and Stages, “Health Reimagined,” “Inclusion & Equity, Not Isolation,” “Caregiving That Works,” and “Affording Aging.” [21] The union explained that the Master Plan would create “a long-term care delivery system that values care providers and ensures access to care for all who need it.” [22]
Funding
Federal tax returns filed by Local 2015 in 2019 showed a total revenue of $90,907,933, total expenses of $76,666,034, and total assets of $84,989,421. [23]
Leadership
April Verrett is the president of SEIU Local 2015. She also holds several positions with the SEIU, serving as an international vice president, chair of the National Home Care Council, co-chair of the National Organizing Committee, and member of the Finance Committee. She has been involved with powerful state initiatives in the past, having been called on by California Governor Newsom to serve on the Alzheimer’s Prevention and Preparedness Task Force in 2019 and on the COVID-related Taskforce on Business and Jobs Recovering in 2020. Verrett is a member of the Committee for Greater LA, a coalition of union, nonprofit, and other leaders which formed in response to the impact of COVID-19. [24]
Kim Evon serves as an executive vice president of SEIU 2015 as well as a board member of the California Long-Term Care Education Center. [25] Other executive vice presidents include Arnulfo De La Cruz, founder of nonprofit voter mobilization group Mi Familia Vota California and former director of SEIU’s Immigrant Justice Campaign, and Dereck Smith, former chief operating officer of Local 2015. [26] [27] Smith additionally serves as a deputy trustee on the SEIU Affiliates Pension Plan and works to build coalitions with left-of-center organizations. [28]