A New Industrial Revolution Begins
"Industry Organizing" is the new face of SEIU 1021. Here's a starter course.
by Randy Lyman
At the 2004 SEIU International Convention, delegates enacted the Seven Pillars of Strength program to build worker strength at the local, national, and global levels and across the labor movement as a whole. One of the pillars was Industry Strength — the idea that elevating wages and working conditions for an entire industry requires organizing a majority of workers within that industry.
Today, SEIU 1021 members are taking the first steps toward industry organizing in northern California — learning the concepts and discovering the power that comes from bigger numbers. In May and June, members of 1021’s eight industry groups started coming together to establish meeting schedules, elect leadership, set agendas, and support each other’s job actions.
What they’ve been finding so far is that workers within an industry, like health care or city government, face a multitude of common challenges regardless in which part of the state they work.
“Because of our greater numbers, we can make a stronger showing in contract fights and job actions,” said Lonetta Evans, an Oakland Housing Authority activist with 1021’s new Special Districts industry group.
How It Started
The current industry organizing drive dates back more than a decade, to the 1996 SEIU International Convention, when delegates voted to devote more resources to organizing. At the 2000 convention, discussion focused on organizing within the union’s core industries, such as health care and building services.
The essential question was this: What does it mean to be a health care union (for instance) when you can’t influence standards or policy decisions within the health care industry? The same question was asked of schools, city and county government, and other industry sectors.
The answer in 2000 was New Strength Unity. Under NSU, locals were required to create an industry-based division structure with dedicated staff and leadership. Locals were also given a mandate to bargain together and to bargain for standards.
The answer in 2004 was the Industry Strength pillar.
“In order to influence industry standards, you need to represent the majority of workers in that industry. Otherwise it’s the non-represented workers who set the standards,” says SEIU 1021 President Damita Davis-Howard. “If we were selling products, we would be talking about market share. If we’re to set standards for wages and working conditions, we have to understand our industry marketplaces and represent the majority of workers in each one.”
Building a Track Record
Recent years show what industry organizing can accomplish. It was unionized nurses, for example, who against the odds succeeded in passing nurse-patient staffing ratios through the state legislature. In the public sector, lawmakers have frequently called California SEIU leaders to testify on bills related to social work and developmental disabilities because our members form the bulk of those workforces.
Several years ago, SEIU-represented social workers convinced lawmakers in Sacramento to commission a time-motion study which ultimately proved their claims that work loads were increasing. When the legislature balked at releasing the study, the social workers pressured their representatives until they did. But even when union members lost their campaign for increased funding to hire more social workers, they were able to take the study back to their counties and develop innovative alternatives at the local level, and then inspire each other by sharing the results. Without communication and unity throughout the industry, such widespread results would not have been possible. Today, increased funding is almost a reality after all, thanks to intense lobbying work in Sacramento.
“We were even consulted on developing testing for social workers — because we understood that industry,” said Davis-Howard.
Ripple Effect
Industry organizing can reach across industries too. The dominance of Nevada’s hotel industry unions made it possible for community hospitals to organize there too — in a right-to-work state, no less.
“When you organize one industry, you set the tone for organizing other industries,” Davis-Howard explained.
Cross-participation in each other’s job actions may be the support mechanism that industry organizing provides, but the real goal is much higher, the strategy more encompassing: developing policies that benefit entire sectors, rather than relying on fighting for benefits at each individual bargaining table.
Members who work in Special Districts learned at their industry meeting that they all face similar problems: short staffing and increasing work loads, as well as also public-private partnerships and “project-based” funding schemes that threaten both jobs and public accountability.
In a show of 1021 unity, members from half a dozen cities took part in a recent contract action with members in Union City.
“As a public sector union, we should be asking what kinds of programs we can propose to local entities and to Sacramento and Washington to say, This is what should be happening in housing authorities or water districts,” said Davis-Howard.
“When we’re united within the Special Districts sector, we’ll be able to do this. Same thing with Cities or Courts or Nonprofits. That’s what we mean by influencing industry standards.”