Latest News
Latest News
From the Oregon border to the San Francisco Bay, get the latest updates from around our union.
California College of the Arts Adjunct Faculty Ratify First Contract
After nearly three years of organizing and more than forty bargaining sessions, adjunct faculty represented by SEIU Local 1021 have ratified a first union contract covering nearly 500 adjuncts at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco and Oakland.
United We Stand
Last fall’s election served as a wake-up call to millions of working people nationwide whose previous political activity began and ended with voting. But with the new and unprecedented threats to economic stability, health care, civil rights and civil liberties of the vast majority of the country, citizen activists are rising up to resist the repressive changes coming from Washington.
SEIU Member, Detained and Disenfranchised, With Immigration Executive Order
Dr. Kamal Fadlalla, a second-year resident physician and member of SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents, is one of thousands of immigrant Americans who have been disenfranchised by President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant Executive Order.
Our First Stand: Protect Access to Affordable Healthcare
Last week Congress took the first steps to strip Medi-Cal from millions, hike taxes on middle-class families and workers who buy insurance through the federal exchange, and to stick seniors with soaring prescription drug costs. And they voted set up a process to cut protections for patients with pre-existing conditions, contraceptive coverage, allowing children on their parents plan until age 26 and more.
Not backing down on economic justice
Our members join hundreds at SFO as the Fight for $15 movement declares “Poverty Doesn’t Fly”
Victory at Standing Rock
In a stunning victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the indigenous rights and environmental justice movement, the federal government halted the Dakota Access Pipeline project. News of the victory arrived just one day before deadline for demonstrators occupying the North Dakota site to evacuate or face forcible eviction.
The Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday, Dec. 4 announced it would instead conduct an environmental impact review of the 1,170-mile pipeline project and determine if there are other ways to route it to avoid a crossing on the Missouri River.
Artists and alumni demand California College of the Arts embrace job security and living wages in the adjunct union contract
Alumni asked to withhold financial support
At the California College of Arts Alumni Weekend Saturday and Sunday Nov. 12 and 13, adjunct faculty and their student supporters took the extreme step of asking alumni to withhold giving donations to the college until a fair contract is reached.
Labor Stands with Standing Rock
Hundreds of Bay Area unionists turned out in Oakland Thursday, November 10 in solidiarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and their fight to stop the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Members of the Tribes have camped out at a pipeline construction site in North Dakota since August. SEIU 1021 was among the 25 local unions that co-sponsored the event, including the California Nurses Association (CNA) and unions united in the Alameda Labor Council.
Throw Back to the 16th Century, Professors March on the NDNU President and Hand Her a 30 ft. Petition
Nearly 30 Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU) faculty members, dressed in their academic robes, marched to university president Judith Maxwell Greig’s office Oct. 25, and unfurled a 30ft. scrolled petition containing more than 300 signatures in favor of rescinding the proposed cuts. The campus has been entangled in controversy sparked by president’s unilateral decision to eliminate 10 graduate and undergraduate programs.
Why we do politics
A Message from SEIU 1021’s Executive Board
The struggle for the rights of working people happens on many levels. There is organizing and the hard work of bringing new members into the union. There are contract negotiations and sometimes, strikes. There are shop stewards and union staff who make sure contracts are enforced. There are legal battles and fights to protect our rights in the courts.
Fake accounts and accountability: Wells Fargo and the public hospital
Published in 48 Hills
In late 2015, a sign mysteriously appeared on the outside of San Francisco General Hospital dubbing the area in front of the main entrance “Wells Fargo Plaza.” This move by a public hospital to honor an international banking and financial services company was made without the knowledge or consent of San Francisco residents.
Student voices at Notre Dame De Namur
Students and faculty members have joined forces to launch a public and campus-wide campaign to rescind the cuts:
“We’re in a really painful situation right now,” said Kim Tolley, faculty senate president and director of NDNU’s Master of Arts in Education program told the San Mateo Journal. “I suspect that it is [related to negotiations], just because the cuts are so draconian and so extensive. It’s just caused a lot of chaos among the faculty.”
Non-Ranked Faculty at California College of the Arts use their talents to turn job insecurity into art
Transforming conflict into art is what artists do, and adjunct faculty at California College of the Arts (CCA) have embarked upon a project that combines the disciplines of memoir, visual arts and bookbinding to create a powerful statement about the precarious nature of their profession.
Faculty Protests Broad Cuts in Graduate and Undergraduate Programs at Notre Dame de Namur
NDNU executives have unilaterally cut and overhauled programs that have resulted in upheaval on campus; the faculty union filed an unfair labor practice charge.
Community prods Santa Rosa City Council to support rent control
The housing crisis that began in San Francisco several years ago and spread to the East Bay, has moved north to Sonoma County. And with it so has a collective resistance to the speculation and greed pricing people out of the communities they have long lived and worked in.
ART PROFESSORS TO ART COLLEGE PRESIDENTS: YOU FAIL!
Adjunct professors and community allies warn art students and scholars that job security at CCA and SFAI is non-existent and that compensation for college art adjunct professors is under the poverty line.
Historic first contract for Dominican University Adjunct Faculty
After marathon final bargaining session — that took a whopping 10 hours — resulted in a historic first contract for the Dominican University Adjunct Faculty. The next step is to present it to our members for an up or down ratification vote to take place very soon.
Significant Gains
· One-to-three year teaching contracts with a predicted course load based on average courses taught, and a transparent, seniority-based, enforceable system for assigning courses.
SEIU 1021 members join statewide fight for $15 minimum wage, affordable housing
The meteoric success of the Fight For 15 has been eye-opening, exposing its limitations. While a bigger paycheck lifts a family up, if the cost of living, particularly housing, goes through the roof, it negates the gain.
MILLS’ ADJUNCT PROFESSORS WIN FIRST EVER CONTRACT; INCLUDES BEST IN THE NATION JOB PROTECTIONS
(Oakland, CA) – Mills College adjunct professors ratified their first ever three-year agreement on Friday, March 18. The new agreement makes significant progress in job security, recruitment & retention of quality professors, and fair compensation.
Among the major gains in the three-year contract:
Secure Choice Board hearings pit big business against … everyone
With the fate of millions of California seniors, now and into the next few decades, hanging in the balance, a state board heard hours of testimony March 1 and 3 before having to gather the political will and decide how – or even whether – to build new paths to retirement with dignity
“When I retire, I hope…”
California is facing a retirement crisis, prompting labor, senior, and community groups to gather in Sacramento Oct. 15 to define the problem, analyze its details and seek solutions.
SF Superior Court workers strike for justice
Picket lines went up at all three of the San Francisco court sites — the Civic Center Courthouse (CCC), the Hall of Justice (HoJ) and the Juvenile Justice Center(JJC) — at 6:30 am. As workers arrived in the morning, they were greeted by chanting people in purple. Even court reporters and court interpreters, members of other unions, joined the line.
Chief Shop Steward Gary Feliciano emphasized that this was a ULP strike because management had so blatantly broken labor law in negotiations.
SEIU 1021 Members Testify to Workers’ Rights Board about Impact of Adjunct Faculty Working Conditions on Higher Education
SAN FRANCISCO–Wednesday, September 9, about 100 people gathered at the St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in the Mission District for a Workers’ Rights Board Hearing on the future of higher education in San Francisco. Faculty and students from the California State University, City College of San Francisco and three SEIU 1021 members from San Francisco Art Institute testified to the poor and declining pay and working conditions within their institutions and the higher education system as a whole.
Alameda Health System Members Win Big for Healthcare Community
SEIU 1021 members at Highland Hospital, community advocates and patients of the Substance Abuse Treatment center are celebrating the decision by Alameda Health System (AHS) Administrators to keep the doors of the treatment center open.
The notice came on the heels of a series of concerted actions to highlight the value of the center and the impact the closure would have on families throughout Alameda County.
Marriage equality ruling advances justice
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v.Hodges, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry issued the following statement:
“Justice and equality are at cornerstones of our union and of the labor movement, but more than that, they are at the heart of the American promise. Today, the Supreme Court advanced justice by settling the debate over marriage equality, once and for all.
Contingent Faculty at St. Mary’s College Win Important Agreement During First Contract Negotiations Regarding Unemployment Insurance Claims
Some of SEIU 1021’s newest members, contingent faculty at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, have long been faced with a yearly conundrum–the same faced by so many college faculty nationwide. When classes let out for summer, they often are faced with unemployment over the summer, and an uncertain future in the fall. Since adjunct contracts are almost always contingent upon funding, enrollment or program changes, they typically can be changed up until the day classes start–and sometimes even after that.
SFERS moves toward fossil fuel divestment
At the urging of SEIU 1021 members, local environmentalists and the Board of Supervisors, the trustees of the San Francisco city workers’ pension fund moved a step closer towards divesting it of money in climate-changing fossil fuel industries. It also moved the city unions closer to investing their retirement savings with social responsibility, to use their collective money for the good of workers and the world.
ADJUNCT FACULTY, STUDENTS, LOW-WAGE WORKERS, ACTIVISTS AND ARTISTS UNITE FOR ART & EDUCATION JUSTICE FESTIVAL
Sunday, March 8, hundreds of adjunct professors, students, artists, low-wage workers, activists and artists joined forces at the Lab in San Francisco for No Justice No Service: Bay Area Art and Education Justice Festival.
SEIU 1021 Members March Against Fracking at the March for Real Climate Leadership
Last December, Bay Area workers, union organizers, and labor leaders toured several communities in the Central Valley impacted by fracking. What we witnessed was horrifying: fracking wells near agricultural fields, community gardens and elementary schools, poisoning the air and water of working class and immigrant communities, causing an epidemic of asthma and cancer.
Oakland Fast Food Workers Strike as Fight for $15 and Union Rights Intensifies
Thousands walk off their jobs in 150 cities, calling for higher pay, union rights
Oakland fast-food workers— many wearing their uniforms from restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s—were among the more cooks, cashiers and maintenance workers arrested Thursday as the fight for $15 and the right to form a union intensified across the country.
Napa County Workers Rally for Affordable Health Care
Napa County employees’ contract expired June 30. Though progress has been made in negotiations, health care remains a sticking point: Napa County is demanding that all County employees pay more for their health care, despite a 3% rate drop for Kaiser next year—a move that would hit the lowest-paid workers hardest.
People with Developmental Disabilities and Their Service Providers Call on Gov. Brown to Restore Funding
Gov. Jerry Brown has ignored people with developmental disabilities in his budget. They, along with their service providers, feel betrayed. Budgeted at 1990 levels, and with over $1 billion cut by the state from their bottom line, California’s DD system is on the verge of collapse—and Jerry Brown has proposed doing next to nothing to save it.
SEIU 1021 Members Speak Up About Workplace Violence at AHS
Shanatte Chatman speaks out about violence against healthcare workers at Alameda Health System. She and her co-workers are demanding that AHS adopt contract standards that address the escalating workplace violence that healthcare workers are facing.
Hundreds of SEIU 1021 Members Mark Tax Day with Protest of Weakening of Vital Services
Over 1,000 San Francisco City workers, nonprofit workers and residents marked Tax Day on April 15 with a major protest of the weakening of vital social services and of the increase in income inequality in the City under Mayor Lee’s economic initiatives.
Kaiser is gouging SF residents and employees; Kaiser is probably gouging others, too
SEIU Local 1021 is committed to maintaining both Kaiser and Blue Shield as healthcare options for our members. We are also committed to keeping healthcare affordable for our members and will oppose unwarranted and unjustified rate increases by any healthcare insurance provider.