Day 2: SEIU Delegates Change the Game, Embracing New Ways to Serve Members, Organize Globally and Do Politics

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO-On day two of their convention, SEIU members promised to dramatically change the way the union serves its members, uses its political voice and builds partnerships with workers around the globe who share common employers.

Political Action After Election Day

For too long time, we have supported candidates who promise the moon but deliver a lot of hot air,"said Roberto Prez, an electrician and member of SEIU Local 1966 in Yauco, Puerto Rico. "That stops here. Starting today, we are going to make sure that our elected leaders know how important it is that they keep their promises."

"Our members get it,"said SEIU International Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger. "They know that it's not enough to win on Election Day. SEIU members decided today that we're going to make sure that the candidates we support not only win the election, but that they do the right thing when they're in office. If a candidate runs on healthcare, we're going to see that candidate support healthcare. We're going to make sure that the public records of elected officials match their campaign rhetoric."

Maryland Democrat Donna Edwards addressed day two of the convention, thanking SEIU members for helping lead her to victory in this year's primary race for Maryland's fourth congressional district. Her presence served as a powerful example of SEIU's pledge to hold politicians accountable. With the support of SEIU and community allies, Edwards beat longstanding incumbent Democratic Representative Al Wynn, who had turned his back on working families.

Serving Members Better

Members also voted today to expand the pilot member resource centers to serve more than one million members by 2012. Member resource centers, managed and operated by SEIU staff members, vastly enhance member services as they provide immediate and expert assistance for members in their concerns-ranging from contracts to workplace complaints-all in the language of the member.

Adopted after witnessing the success of Australian labor unions, which credit member resource centers with helping provide the capacity to oust the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard, SEIU piloted the centers in California, Illinois and New York to wild success.

"Member resource centers have completely transformed my job and improved the quality of what we offer our members,"said Efrain Elias, a local field representative at SEIU Local 1 in Chicago. "Our members can now call one number and get the help they need in their own language. It's like one-stop shopping. The members get fast and accurate answers. And I can spend my time working directly with members to address issues in their workplaces and in their communities."

Building Worker Power Around the World

Members also discussed building partnerships with workers in other countries sharing the same multinational employers as a strategy to build worker power in a global economy.

Since adopting a plan at SEIU's 2004 convention to establish global union partnerships, SEIU members have met with 125 unions in 20 countries on all continents to build powerful new alliances, discuss organizing and learn from union members in other countries.
"For workers to win in global economies, we need global strategies and transnational union partnerships,"said Rocio Saenz, President of Local 615 in Boston, Massachusetts. "It took a 30-country alliance of unions of G4S workers to help win union recognition for 50,000 workers around the world. We took on Goliath with little more than a slingshot and ingenuity, but together, we crafted a model of success."
G4S (formerly Group 4 Securicor), a British company, is the second largest private corporation in the world and the largest in Africa.
Delegate Votes

In addition to voting for a political accountability program and member resource centers, member delegates voted unanimously for a resolution supporting workers' rights in Burma and overwhelmingly to pass resolutions to reform our national healthcare system, to both support the troops in Iraq and bring them home and to unify all long term care workers in the same local in every state.

The member delegates also voted in the most diverse slate of officers to ever head a labor union. In addition to the re-election of International President Andy Stern, International Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, and Executive Vice Presidents Eliseo Medina, Tom Woodruff, Mary Kay Henry, Gerald "Gerry"Hudson, the members also elected Dave Regan of Ohio and Annelle Grajeda of California to also serve as Executive Vice Presidents for the 2008-2012 term.
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