Search: News & Events, 07/2023

July 12 was supposed to be payday for San Francisco Unified School District staff. Yet, nearly 1,000 of its lowest-paid, hardworking employees, including lunch servers, nutrition workers, janitors, and clerks who help keep San Francisco schools running every day, did not receive their much-needed checks, instead receiving a last-minute email from the district stating that it was “unable to implement that timeline successfully.” Workers were informed their checks wouldn’t be available until two weeks later, on July 26.

In an urgent rally on Monday, July 17, Asian Health Services healthcare workers joined together to confront a dangerous staffing crisis that is compromising critical health services and putting vulnerable patients at risk. Short staffing has led to excessively long wait times and declining levels of care for patients, impacting vital programs such as dental, membership, and referrals. Patients are facing waitlists of up to six months, with some waitlists containing up to 500 people, and they have reported waiting up to a week just for a referral.

While salaries for the highest paid Marin Water positions of District General Manager and District Council have been allowed to keep up with the consumer price index, the Marin Water Board of Directors has left the frontline workers behind.

After many months of advocacy and rallies at San Francisco City Hall, SEIU 1021, supported by SEIU 2015 and community partners, accomplished our goal of securing a 4.75% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA)/cost of doing business (CDB) for our members working for nonprofits funded by the San Francisco Departments of Public Health, Homelessness, and Adult Probation, as well as 3.75% for all other City-funded nonprofits. 

Despite total revenue for Mendocino County having increased 44.8% since fiscal year 2019-2020, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors have suggested County employees pay more for their healthcare and retirement – an overall pay cut that will further harm the County’s ability to apply a tourniquet to its staffing crisis. As County workers continue to escalate towards what could be the largest strike Mendocino County has seen in recent history, County workers picketed Tuesday, July 11, outside the courthouse to save county services.  

The Supreme Court of California granted a request by the California Gig Workers Union on June 28, 2023, to decide the constitutionality of 2020’s California Proposition 22, a voter-approved measure to classify drivers for gig corporations such as Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates as contractors rather than employees. The court’s action set aside a lower-court ruling that had primarily upheld the 2020 ballot measure.

On Wednesday, July 5, Starbucks workers at the 8th and Irving store in San Francisco filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board.

“We as workers are making all the money for these billion-dollar companies, and we’re not seeing any of it. We need an end to the disrespect we get from management, and we need consistent, adequate hours and a living wage,” said Atakan Deviren, a barista at the store for the past year. 

After months of bargaining with a county administration that refuses to address its staffing crisis — leaving its families, children, and seniors in danger  — SEIU 1021 members at Mendocino County held a strike school on Wednesday, June 28, to educate themselves about their rights and responsibilities should a strike be necessary.

On May 25, 2023, workers at the California Academy of Sciences filed for an NLRB union election to join SEIU 1021 as CalAcademy Workers United. Their election petition demonstrated overwhelming support across the Academy for the formal recognition of our union.

Since then, management has been attempting to defeat their organizing campaign by using typical union-busting tactics including: