What’s up with SEIU lately? The national union, with its 1.9 million members and massive Washington, DC headquarters in stylish DuPont Circle, has recently been facing one scandal after another.
The latest, brewing since 2017, has to do with the union reportedly failing to fully address dozens of sexual harassment claims. In fact, a new Center for Union Facts campaign, Time’s Up SEIU, launched last week to draw attention to the allegations and the union’s poor response—even buying ad time during the latest Democrat debate.
Meanwhile, in the last year, SEIU employees of the union at national headquarters threatened to go on strike during the last round of contract negotiations. The reason? Employees said SEIU was outsourcing work to non-union contractors and misclassifying workers, effectively shrinking the size of the bargaining unit.
All this from one of the country’s most activist unions, which piously launched the “Fight for 15” campaign from Seattle to New York.
The latest stream of news won’t be terribly surprising to our Pennsylvania members, however. Even at the state level, workers like Jayme Hollenbach and Cisco Molina have experienced union leaders who are tone-deaf, threatening, and unresponsive. Not to mention the SEIU Local 668 workers who had to take the union to court for the right to resign membership when they wanted.
Whether state or national, corporate SEIU has been failing its members for a long time. Thanks to some brave workers, that decay is now coming to light.