Changes

SEIU chiefly represents public employees, whose employers are federal, state, and local governments. They answer to voters not shareholders, and politically powerful unions like SEIU have a strong voice at the polls,. Government agencies do not have to fear that strikes will give an advantage to their competition--they have little local competition and no fears of international competitors--so strikes are not common. But the voting power of SEIU means local and state politicians--especially Democrats--are willingly agree to union recognition and enter into long-term collective bargaining contracts with votes as an implicit side payment.

SEIU chiefly represents public employees, whose employers are federal, state, and local governments. They answer to voters not shareholders, and politically powerful unions like SEIU have a strong voice at the polls,. Government agencies do not have to fear that strikes will give an advantage to their competition--they have little local competition and no fears of international competitors--so strikes are not common. But the voting power of SEIU means local and state politicians--especially Democrats--are willingly agree to union recognition and enter into long-term collective bargaining contracts with votes as an implicit side payment.

==Components==

==Components==

The SEIU represents four service industry "divisions":  

The SEIU represents four service industry "divisions":  

In the last two decades a great deal of consolidation happened in the union movement. The garment workers union<ref> The successor to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Its membership is shrinking but it has a large treasury.</ref>  and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union), merged in 2004 to create a new union UNITE HERE, with 450,000 members. Then UNITE HERE formed a coalition with the Teamsters, SEIU,  the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Laborers, and the United Farm Workers (UFW) to form '''Change to Win'''. It represented a challenge to the well-established [[AFL-CIO]]. Andy Stern was the spokesman for Change to Win and he challenged AFL-CIO president John Sweeney for national attention.

In the last two decades a great deal of consolidation happened in the union movement. The garment workers union<ref> The successor to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Its membership is shrinking but it has a large treasury.</ref>  and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union), merged in 2004 to create a new union UNITE HERE, with 450,000 members. Then UNITE HERE formed a coalition with the Teamsters, SEIU,  the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Laborers, and the United Farm Workers (UFW) to form '''Change to Win'''. It represented a challenge to the well-established [[AFL-CIO]]. Andy Stern was the spokesman for Change to Win and he challenged AFL-CIO president John Sweeney for national attention.

Recently Stern's SEIU has been raiding members from UNITE HERE, thus creating a deep division in the Change to Win coalition.

Recently Stern's SEIU has been raiding members from UNITE HERE, thus creating a deep division in the Change to Win coalition.  In 2008 Bruce Raynor of UNITE, the co-president of UNITE-HERE declare the UNITE-HERE merger a failure, and tried to take UNITE (and its bank) into SEIU. The other co-president John Wilhelm of HERE protested loudly, and the internecine battle was on.  Stern He financed and, with Raynor, created a new hotel-restaurant-casino union called 'Workers United" that is part of SEIU and is now openly trying to sign up HERE members.  Raynor resigned from UNITE-HERE, becoming president of Workers United and executive vice president of SEIU.

 

Meanwhile the turmoil has given conservatives in Congress another good reason to fight EFCA (a card-check device that would replace secret union elections), because it would be used in factional fights.