Earlier this month, SEIU 721 members racked up some key wins in a host of Southern California races, winning in 15 of the 19 contests where we made endorsements. So why does this matter to our members? Just like with external organizing, activism in politics can have a direct impact on workers’ jobs, wages, benefits and working conditions. This is doubly true with public employees.
In 2014, many pundits wrote the obituary of the working family. In the national media, they pronounced public workers dead — the victims of countless attacks at the ballot and in the courts, funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, Wall Street and anti-worker lobbying groups. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.
In 2014, SEIU 721 members secured some stunning victories, ratifying good new contracts in L.A. County, beating back pension take-aways in Ventura, launching ground-breaking community partnerships, like Fix L.A., and leading the way on big fights, like the Fight for $15, across the region. But I’m not going to sugar-coat it, 2015 is going to be tough. Here are the four pillars of a winning strategy put together by 721’s members.
Watching bargaining with the City of L.A. earlier this month, I felt like I was trapped in a Charles Dickens novel. That’s because Los Angeles is becoming a Tale of Two Cities. In the first, workers sacrifice to help the city thrive and wind up being punished for it. In the second, the big banks that broke the economy and top City of L.A. executives get rewarded. In the first L.A., city workers stepped up and helped bail out the city in the wake of the 2007 Wall Street crash, losing 5,000 positions.
Earlier this month, 721 members gathered high up in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains for a day-long summit on the future of our work in L.A. County. From the vantage point of the Mount St. Mary’s campus, L.A. looks completely different. It’s a good reminder that, when it seems like we face insurmountable problems, we need to shift our perspective to find a way to win.
721 members who’ve participated in Sacramento lobby days know that it’s hot, stressful and often tedious work. But it’s all worth it if, after all the running between offices in the sweltering Sacramento sun, the marathon committee hearings, the rushed meetings with harried legislators and the line-by-line review of bills, you score victories like 721 members just achieved for county eligibility workers and children’s social workers.
721 members would fight to increase L.A.’s minimum wage even if it didn’t benefit them directly — the gap between the richest Angelenos and average workers is the widest it’s ever been. But winning a minimum wage increase for all L.A. workers isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s good for every member of 721.
What a difference a month makes. In June, pundits were predicting the Supreme Court decision in Harris v. Quinn would effectively end the union movement. While the ruling was wrong-headed, it was far from the predicted deathblow.
The recent Supreme Court decision about the union rights of Illinois homecare workers focused national attention on the well-funded legal attacks on public employees, but they’re nothing new.
SEIU 721 members won two big victories this month that illustrates why we use all the tools in the union toolbox to protect working people.