Strategic Organizing Center (SOC)

The Strategic Organizing Center’s leadership council is comprised of the heads of its three member labor unions: SEIU president April Verrett, UFW president Teresa Romero, and CWA president Claude Cummings, Jr. ¹

History

Origins

In the early 2000s, a number of leaders at AFL-CIO member unions were unhappy over the federation’s perceived prioritization of political and labor law reform over union organizing, which they argued was responsible for a decades-long decline in union membership. ³

In 2003, AFL-CIO member unions Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), and the newly merged textile, restaurant employee, and hotel employee union Unite Here joined the independent United Brotherhood of Carpenters to form the New Unity Partnership, which was originally presented as a coalition for driving change within the AFL-CIO but quickly became a rival labor federation named Change to Win with the addition of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), and the United Food and Commercial Workers. ^{3 4 2}

One of Change to Win’s key strategic goals was to increase union “density”—the proportion of employees unionized—within already organized industries. ⁵ Andrew Stern, the then-president of the SEIU who was seen as the leader of the New Unity Partnership, said that “unions must be much bigger to be able to bargain with global companies” and opposed the creation of smaller unions that represent local regions. ⁵

In addition to the public justifications for Change to Win’s creation, labor movement observers attributed much of the decision to an ongoing struggle for power within the upper leadership of the labor movement, as well as a desire by unions to pay lower per-capita dues to a labor federation. ^{6 7} In These Times writer Steve Early explained, “At the time of its birth, skeptics argued that CtW was more about the money (as in paying less), than a different kind of union functioning.” ⁸

Longtime labor columnist David Moberg wrote in 2005 that the creation of CtW was billed by its members as a fight over the direction the labor movement was heading but ultimately became a struggle for power over who oversaw choosing that direction. ⁶ According to Moberg, in the end, “Change to Win unions wanted to have power to name the next AFL-CIO president” when then-President John Sweeney stepped down, and chose to leave when they could not get complete control of the selection decision. ⁶

Change to Win launched with seven member unions with more than $1 billion in combined assets and nearly five million members, which was equivalent to 40 percent of the AFL-CIO’s pre-split membership. ³ The new federation’s leaders claimed that it would spend 75% of its annual budget on organizing, and that its individual unions would spend nearly $750 million combined on organizing at the local, state, and national levels annually. ⁹

At its founding convention, then-Teamsters president James P. Hoffa promised the CtW would be a “lean, mean, organizing machine” ³ and then-SEIU vice president Tom Woodruff argued that there were over 40 million potential new union members that could be organized into CtW’s unions. ¹⁰

Mission Failure

Both Change to Win’s and the AFL-CIO’s organizing suffered after the split, and the aggregate number of organizing campaign wins between the two organizations fell by 1,427 wins (or 40%) as compared against the prior six years. ¹¹

Moreover, a review of National Labor Relations Board organizing elections data found that from 2006 through 2011, CtW member unions underperformed the AFL-CIO, winning 58% of their elections compared to the AFL-CIO’s 64.1% win rate. ¹¹ Change to Win’s unions added 170,679 new union members in its first six years through organizing campaigns. ¹¹

The increase was mostly confined to the SEIU, which added 300,000 workers to its ranks while CtW’s other union memberships remained flat or significantly declined. ⁸ Unite Here lost 90,000 members by 2008 while the Teamsters membership rose by just 0.4%. ¹²

By 2007, observers had declared that Change to Win had failed to accomplish its stated goal of turning labor unions’ focus from politics to organizing, as the SEIU was the only union to see significant member growth while the underlying organizations remained as politically focused as the AFL-CIO was pre-split. ³

By 2008, Change to Win’s overall membership had decreased by nearly 700,000 workers. ¹³

Member Defections

CtW member unions began to leave, hastened in some cases by conflict with the dominant SEIU and its leader Andrew Stern. ^{3 2} The Carpenters Union, which had been the first to leave the AFL-CIO even before Change to Win’s launch, became the first to leave the new federation as well in 2009. ^{2 14 7}

One of the factors that widened cracks within Change to Win was a perception that the SEIU was using the federation as a mechanism to take over the 450,000-member Unite Here union of apparel and textile trades, hotel, restaurant, and gaming industry workers. ^{15 16}

The conflict led both to the split of more than 100,000 Unite Here workers into a new SEIU-affiliated union named Workers United, but also the 2009 decision by the remaining components of Unite Here to return to the AFL-CIO, followed the year afterward by the Laborers union. ^{17 2}

The left-of-center news organization Democracy Now! claimed that many labor union insiders believed the SEIU had “gone off the deep end in its attempt to raid other unions.” ¹⁸

Rebranding

In 2011, Change to Win rebranded itself to the “Strategic Organizing Center” (SOC) ⁸ with a new focus on organizing new labor union members rather than fulfilling all the traditional roles of a labor federation. The UFCW departed the SOC in 2013, returning to the AFL-CIO. ^{14 7}

The Strategic Organizing Center’s membership held steady for much of the next decade with the SEIU, Teamsters, and United Farm Workers as its members. ^{14 7} It also worked with the Communications Workers of America, which had remained part of the AFL-CIO while participating in SOC’s organizing and lobbying activities. ¹

However, the Teamsters departed SOC in 2022, ^{14 7} and in 2025, the SEIU announced that it would be rejoining the AFL-CIO. ¹⁹

While the SEIU planned on continuing its organizing work with SOC, its departure left the United Farm Workers as the Strategic Organizing Center’s only non-AFL-CIO-member affiliate and thus ended any remaining role for the SOC as a labor federation. ^{19 20}

Political Activity

Background

In 2005, Change to Win leaders criticized the AFL-CIO for spending too much on politics as one of the reasons for their departure, but Change to Win’s affiliated unions focused heavily on politics to help their organizing efforts. University of Richmond political scientist Tracy Roof concluded there was “no significant difference in the levels of political spending between Change to Win affiliates and AFL-CIO affiliates in the two years following the split.” ³

Political Spending

In 2006, CtW, the AFL-CIO, and 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate Wesley Clark, jointly founded the September Fund, which was organized by Clinton White House aide Harold Ickes. ²¹

CtW and its affiliated political committees gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to state-based Democratic Party committees ²² and left-of-center organizations such as UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), ProgressiveCongress.org, the Sierra Club, and the defunct community organizing network ACORN. ²³ The organization has pushed for a number of notably left-of-center labor policies such as a $15 minimum wage, ²⁴ universal federal unionization, a prohibition on state right-to-work laws, ²⁵ and card-check legislation ²⁶ that would eliminate the use of secret ballots in union organizing elections. ²⁷

In 2008, Change to Win was an early supporter of then-U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) for the Democratic presidential nomination over then-U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). The Atlantic reported that CtW created its own political field operation and organizing operation ²⁸ and planned to spend over $20 million to help elect Democrats in battleground states. ²⁹

Additionally, CtW’s political education account received $16.8 million in contributions from 2006 through 2009 and spent $11 million supporting Democratic campaigns. This political education account gave $50,000 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association, $50,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, $50,000 to the Florida Democratic Party, $1 million to the left-leaning Majority Action PAC, $60,000 to various Ohio state Democratic Party committees, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to other union PACs. ²²

From 2009 through 2016, the group’s general treasury only reported a total of $511,313 in total political and lobbying spending, but its Change to Win Political Education PAC reported a total of $16.8 million in contributions and $11.6 million in other expenditures over that time. ^{30 31}

From 2017 to 2023, the sole reported political general treasury expense was $18,254 in videography for progressive media company Democrats.com, operators of Act.TV. ²³

Left-of-Center Organizations

Change to Win has given millions of dollars in contributions to left-of-center organizations including $75,000 to ProgressiveCongress.org, $50,000 to UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), $150,000 to America Votes, $43,084 to the Sierra Club, and nearly $500,000 to the left-leaning Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. ³²

From 2006 through 2009 , Change to Win gave over $400,000 to various ACORN entities including ACORN National, ACORN California, and Washington ACORN. ³³

Positions

The Strategic Organizing Center uses groups known as “worker centers” such as the National Day Labor Organizing Network to organize employees who are then later added to the traditional unions. Business groups describe this as an “end-run around labor laws” regulating the unionization of new groups of workers. ³⁴

SOC’s Good Jobs Nation campaign is a worker center advocacy organization pushing for a number of left-of-center policy issues on behalf of federal-contract workers. ³⁵ Good Jobs Nation advocates for federal government policies that provide new government benefits to contract employees, imposing burdensome federal restrictions on federal contractors. The group also pushes for universal unionization of all federal contract employees and opposes right-to-work laws across the country. ²⁵

SOC supports the SEIU’s “Fight for $15” campaign advocating for a mandatory $15 minimum wage across the country. ²⁴

Before the Teamsters left SOC in 2022, SOC operated a truck driver worker center campaign to coordinate labor strikes alongside the Teamsters union, ³⁶ calling for a government-mandated reclassification of port truck drivers as full-time employees. ³⁷ This policy change was estimated to risk adding at least $1.4 billion in annual supply-chain costs to American companies. ³⁸

Card Check

Change to Win was an ardent supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, ²⁶ an unsuccessful federal bill that would have effectively eliminated secret-ballot union elections nationwide and instead required acknowledging publicly signed union cards to organize unions. ³⁹

In 2006, the Littler law firm wrote “the main objective of many corporate campaigns is to obtain an agreement for a ‘card check’ recognition,” and that “most employers and many employees object to card check recognition on the grounds that union representatives can subject employees to coercion, peer pressure, threats, and misrepresentations.” ⁴⁰

University of North Carolina-Charlotte finance professor Tony Plath said that CtW’s corporate campaign against Bank of America was intended to build support for the federal “card check” legislation. ²⁷

Similarly, CVS executives alleged that CtW “began its campaign to disparage CVS in 2007 after it refused to waive its employees’ right to vote confidentially in union elections.” ⁴¹

Corporate Campaigns

The Strategic Organizing Center and its member unions uses corporate campaigns aimed at damaging a company’s reputation and profitability to push employers toward its left-of-center policy agenda. ⁴²

It operates the SOC Investment Group, formerly the CtW Investment Group, which uses activist investor tactics to leverage union pension fund resources and shareholdings to pressure corporations to accede to union demands. ⁴³ It has supported the election of pro-union board members, promoted shareholder votes, or otherwise pressured companies including Hyundai, Tesla, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Dollar General, YUM Brands, eBay, Lyft, RBI, Amazon, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Starbucks, Domino’s, General Electric, HCA Healthcare, Activision Blizzard, Alphabet, Rivian, and Apple. ⁴³ In 2009, it waged a corporate shareholder campaign against Bank of America calling for the termination of the company’s president as part of CtW’s broader effort to unionize it and other banks. ²⁷

Twice, CtW was sued for its involvement in aggressive corporate campaigns that sought to disparage businesses to reduce the corporation’s stock and public image to gain exclusive bargaining rights for its member unions at teach corporation. ^{44 45}

Strategic Organizing Center has waged corporate campaigns against targets including Bank of America, CVS, Nissan, Smithfield Foods, T-Mobile, Walmart, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Amazon, Sodexo, and call-center operator Maximus. ^{41 42 46 47}

In 2007, Smithfield Foods sued CtW and its then-member union the UFCW alleging that the two entities ran a “malicious” and “extortionate” pressure campaign in violation of federal RICO anti-corruption statutes and other state anti-extortion laws. ⁴⁸ The lawsuit claimed that Change to Win and the UFCW corporate campaign used false and/or damaging information, interference with Smithfield’s business relations, orchestration of frivolous regulatory investigations, and communications with financial analysts in an effort to reduce the value of Smithfield stock and to have Smithfield executives acknowledge the UFCW as the exclusive bargaining representative for some of their employees. ⁴⁸

In 2011, food service company Sodexo, Inc. sued CtW and the SEIU ⁴⁹ alleging the duo’s corporate campaign “amounted to extortion.” ⁵⁰ During the lawsuit, an SEIU corporate campaign memo was introduced as evidence detailing how the SEIU and thus CtW encouraged union members to publicize “dirt” including charges of “racism, sexism, exploitation of immigrants” to push the company’s executives to agree to a union organizing contract. ⁴⁵

Blagojevich Senate Seat Controversy

In 2008, the SEIU was named in a federal criminal complaint against then-Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich (D) that alleged a Blagojevich staffer had suggested to a top SEIU official he would appoint President-elect Barack Obama’s preferred candidate, Valerie Jarrett, to the U.S. Senate in exchange for a $300,000 per year job as executive director at Change to Win. ^{51 52}