Thousands of SEIU members gathered last month in Detroit, Michigan for our International Union’s 2016 convention to celebrate some of the huge victories of the past four years — like the wave of wins in the Fight for $15 campaign — and develop a plan for the next four.

Our newly re-elected SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry described how, four years ago, workers and their allies were under constant attack: “We thought our voices weren’t strong enough to take on all the ‘antis’ — anti-black, anti-worker, anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-immigrant and anti-government forces.”

Our union had a choice: hunker down and hope we could protect what we already had; or redouble our efforts and fight back. I am so proud of our members and our union that we chose the latter.

At 721, we opted for an aggressive approach. We backed Fight for $15, we partnered with allies in the community and the clergy to create good jobs targeted to communities of color, we started Black/Brown voter registration drives and joined in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and the immigration reform movement.

So I was heartened that SEIU delegates approved a transformative plan to grow our union and build a more just society over the next four years by focusing in six key areas:

• Environmental Justice
• Racial Justice
• Immigrant Justice
• Fight for $15 and a Union
• LGBTQ Justice
• Women’s Equality

Four years from now, we’ll look back on this as the moment SEIU’s campaign for real justice in America became unstoppable.

Bob Schoonover, President