San Juan, Puerto Rico-Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) kicked off its 24th International Convention today with the announcement that the organization's membership had grown to two million.  At a time when many workers have been struggling, SEIU members have united more than a million workers since 1996 and made record gains at the bargaining table, in politics and in their communities.

"I came to Puerto Rico knowing we were strong, but I had no idea we had rung the bell,"said Linda Rouse Sutton, a state employee from SEIU Local 2008 in North Carolina whose association voted to affiliate with SEIU just this May.  "Does size matter?  You bet it does.  Today we're no longer a group of state employees in the South.  We're part of something bigger that is looking after working people in all over this country and Canada, too!"

JUSTICE FOR ALL

SEIU's two million-member announcement set the stage for members to unveil the ambitious Justice for All platform--an organizing and political plan with the goal of restoring balance in our society between people who work and people with wealth.

"We want to win a better future for all working people,"said Andy Stern, International President of SEIU. "And it's going to take the active voice and participation of our union members to bring Justice for All to the millions more workers who are not yet represented by a union.  We've doubled our size in 12 years.  It took courage, persistence and a lot of organizing for us to reach this milestone.  And I say today what I said 12 years ago: this is just the beginning." 

In his president's report, Stern revealed that by implementing the divisions' plans, at its next convention SEIU would become the largest union representing private sector workers in North American history and "for the first time be the largest state, county and municipal workers union in the Americas,"meaning "purple will lead the public sector."  Stern also announced that the union intends to establish a presence in Mexico, joining the union's presence in Canada, the US and Puerto Rico, in the coming months.
The Justice for All plan commits members to continue to build strength by uniting at least a half million more not-yet-union workers in the core industries of healthcare, property services and the public sector over the next four years.

DELEGATE VOTES

The day concluded with the nearly 2000 member delegates discussing and voting on the Justice for All plan. The delegates gave the plan overwhelming support, approving it by a definitive margin. For details of SEIU's Justice for All plan, visit www.seiu2008.org.

"Our members are going to transform how we think about organizing and how this country thinks about unions,"said Anna Burger, International Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU.  "Today our members voted for "Justice for All,"tomorrow they begin the work of winning justice for all."

Every four years, the rank-and-file leadership of the union that is vested with the authority to elect SEIU leaders and set policy comes together at SEIU's convention to determine the agenda of the union. The Convention is the highest decision-making body in SEIU.

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