Introduction

Service Employee International Union (SEIU) is a union of labor portraying around 1.9 million employees in more than 100 professions in Canada and the United States. The Union pays more attention to managing employees in three areas: health care (nearly half of the union members employ in the field of health care), including nursing home employees, home care, and hospital; property services including food service employees, security officers and superintendents; and public services including state and local government workers (Cooney & Stuart, 2013). The Union has more than 150 branches locally. Service Employees the International Union is associated with Canadian Labor Congress and Win Federation. The Union has its global headquarters in Washington, D.C (Kerrissey & Schofer, 2013).

2. History

Service Employee International Union was created in Chicago in 1921 as Building Services Employees Union (BSEU). The first affiliates of Service Employees International Union were window washers, elevator operators, and janitors. The membership of Service Employees International Union enlarged majorly with a strike of Garment District in New York in 1934. To exhibit its maximized expanded membership, the union was renamed as Service Employees International Union in 1968. From the year 1980 to 1984, most developments of the Union came from its joint venture with four major unions which were Health Care Employees Union, Drug Union, Hospital Union, and International Jewellery Workers Union. In the year 1995, President of the Union John Sweeney won the election of AFL-CIO for president, the significant association of labor unions in the US. After the departure of John Sweeney, a former social worker of SEIU Andrew Stern won the presidential elections and got elected as the president of the Union. During the initial 10 years of the administration of Stern, a significant increase has been seen in the memberships of the Union and the Union became largest labor union in AFL-CIO (Agrawal, 2012).

In the year 2003, Service Employees International Union established New Unity Partnership; a company of unions that advocated a larger commitment to managing disorderly employees into unions. In the year 2005, Change to Win Coalition was founded by Service Employees International Union, which encouraged the reformist program, castigating the AFL-CIO for emphasizing its consideration on electoral politics, rather than furthering regulating in front of declining union membership. These disparities aggravated on the eve of the convention of AFL-CIO in 2005, as it was announced by Teamsters and Service Employees International Union that they are quitting the membership with AFL-CIO. The founding convention of Change to Win Federation was held by them in September 2005, where Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU named Anna Burger was declared chairman of the organization.

According to Tapia & Turner (2013) in the subsequent ten years, various members of Change to Win quitted their membership and got them affiliated with AFL-CIO, leaving United Farm Workers, Teamsters, and the SEIU as their remaining affiliates. The decision of SEIU to quit the membership with AFL-CIO is taken into account controversial by few of labor union experts. After quitting membership, the SEIU continued to encounter important progress in affiliations. Stern left the seat of president in 2010 and Mary Kay Henry became the president of SEIU at that time. She was the first female president of Service Employees International Union, a staff member of SEIU and a long-time organizer

3. Political Affiliation

There is a long history of Service Employees International Union of being too affiliated with politics. It has proved to be top spender on Democratic campaigns in last year. SEIU spends a lot of money on elections and in accordance with Union’s disclosures, around $70 million were spent by SEIU for campaign donations and getting-out-the-vote efforts of people for Mr. Obama and other different democrats.

One of the major dominant groups in Washington, D.C United States, the union exhibits around 2.1 million employees in the industry of health care, property service professions, and government service. Service Employees the International Union has shown a lot of political affiliation by spending a lot in various elections. With respect to the financial reports of a Centre for Responsive Politics appraisal of a campaign of Federal Election Commission;  in the campaign sequence of 2012, all the political service organizations and committees affiliated with SEIU spent 68.3 million dollars as a whole, altogether making it the 5^th highest expenditure non-party group (Fisk & Chemerinsky, 2012). The most dynamic SEIU, PAC Committee on Political Education (COPE), spent 13.7 million dollars during the election of 2012 on TV commercials and other mediums recommending for defeat or election of members. A large amount of the spent money helped President Obama to get him re-elected. It spent 3.6 million dollars against Mitt Romney and 1.1 million dollars in favor of Obama. As a whole, PAC expended 11.5 million dollars for condemning over forty GOP members.

The website of the group describes SEIU COPE is formed with 300,000 SEIU contributors, retirees, and workers who donate an average of 7 dollars per month. There were only 15 members who contributed 200 dollars to PAC in the period of 2012 and the highest contribution was 1,200 dollars. As of May, no contribution more than 200 dollars have been provided for the year 2014.

In the year 2013, SEIU pushed hard to revamp the laws of federal immigration. SEIU COPE spent more than half million dollars on TV commercials challenging Speaker of the House John Boehner and rest of the Republicans in swing regions on issues of immigration. It was increased to 2.5 million dollars that, according to the group, was expended on paid media in legislative movement and multi-pronged field to pass rational immigration improvement with a corridor to citizenship.

As of 2017 June, COPE has spent around 1.3 million dollars on independent expenses, most of which was expended in the special election of 2013. The PAC expended 569,530 dollars to help then-Rep, Ed Markey, who captivate a special election for the seat of Secretary last year to replace old seat held by John Kerry. It also spent 47 thousand dollars in radio advertisement in opposition to Democrat Deborah Halvorson, who looked forward her nomination of the party in a special election to swap Jesse Jackson Jr. Halvorson lost special election nomination of the party to Robin Kelly, who won, in the end, the seat of second Congressional District. For the cycle of 2014, COPE has spent 312,700 dollars in opposed to Republican Terri Lynn Land a Republican candidate for Senate from Michigan (Paret, 2013).                           

4. Process Followed

The management of Service Employees International Union follows a complete and reliable process. SEIU 1021 Local presents image of public sector employees and private non-profit employees. If one is employing in a non-profit private organization, the unionization process will require passing through National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This Board is a board administered by a government which saves rights of employees to organize. So, if one individual wants to become member of union then he or she has to properly pass through National Labor Relations Board. If one is employing in a public sector organization, the process of unionization would be administered by Public Employees Relation Board (Yu, 2013). The Service Employees International Union follows different processes for public sector’ employees and for non-profit private sector firms’ employees.      

5. Current Challenges

The process of globalization is progressing swiftly and has turned out to be a major subject of debate in many areas; economic, political and social. SEIU is progressing in foreign countries through acquisitions and joint ventures. Its goal is to look forward to new markets and cheap labors. Globalization acts on both of the coin sides, on one side, it advocates employment opportunities and economic development; on the second side, transfer of creativity, innovation, and technology, and unbinds the restrictions of trading (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2016). It is stated by Osterman (2014) that globalization has appeared as a significant contributing element to issues faced by trade unions. It drains the ability of SEIU to control employment and work within the local boundaries in which they are rooted. Globalization has been summarized by Meade (2013) as “commodification” which involves buying and selling everything as a commodity subject to forces of the market. Globalization has led to many problems in operations of SEIU; large competition in the markets has weakened the bargaining ability of SEIU in labor market. It is stated by Fossum (2014) that SEIU played the role as shared bargainers at the state level, enterprises of health and home care, which had the most number of unionized employees and it lacks the ability to adjust to swiftly altering economy. Moreover, enlarged diversity of workforce minimized the needed harmony for SEIU.

It is argued by Hester et al (2016) that globalization has provided employers power to dominate unions of labor, the previous disobeyed laws of labor; declined to give benefits to unemployment, health care, and so on. In the meantime, the slow economic progress has resulted in bargaining organized dissolution, bargaining code was broken by employers and they preferred to regulate benefits and wages at individual organizational level.

It is argued by Hetland (2015) that globalization has been seen by many analysts as a challenge which restricts the regulation of employment and hence reduces the ability of trade union. Moreover, it was added by Hyman that demographic alterations, limits on public expenses, wide-ranging privatization have challenged regulatory operations of SEIU. With respect to Hurd & Lee (2014), the international competition has forced organizations to migrate abroad. In order to achieve maximum profit with lessened capital movement regulations, opportunities and jobs are shifted to non-unionized areas and lower labor expenditure, leaving unions with no authority. This destabilized employees along with their unions due to opening to jobs only to non-union employees. Another new disputable contract in the United Kingdom as discussed by Buchanan et al (2014) is whereby workers are likely to put their rights of employment to a side in substitute with shares of the company. Few rights in these comprise of a request for pliable working hours, unfair dismissal and leisure time for training. This is humiliating for SEIU who preserves the rights of employment intensely.           

In the end of 20^th century, SEIU faced a major challenge of reduction in the size of American industrial base. Due to low prices of labor, foreign organizations got assistance to acquire more market share in America. Due to the shift of US factories to other countries, the union members had to lose their job. The introduction of new and advanced machinery resulted in the elimination of many workers. This was done in order to enhance the productivity for competing in the market. In response to this, SEIU took various measures to protect incomes and jobs of people that included shorter weeks to share the work among workers. This shrinking of American industry was proved to be a major challenge for labor movements. Similarly, SEIU also faced a reduction in a number of employees who were actually members of the union. It can be said that it depicts the trend of American society that is away from developing industries, where there is no strong role of labor unions. In current years, there are more proportion of part-time employees, females and young people in employment. It is critically analyzed that the industry of America has moved towards western and southern parts of US where union tradition is weaker in comparison with East or North (Kerrissey & Schofer, 2013).

6. Effect on Working Environment of Organizations

6.1. Unionization

Establishment of unions is encouraged by the National Labor Relations Act. It is stated by this legislation that workers have got the right to administer, create, assist or join in labor unions and use collective bargaining with the help of representation. This makes sure that there is a proper representation of workers in SEIU and moreover limits inequitable practices of the employer. Although unionized labor may assist workers in enhancing the environment of their work and livelihood, it can cause few difficulties for enterprises (Bryson & White, 2016).

6.2. Increased Wages

SEIU usually increases the salaries which are being paid by organizations to their employees across the board. Although high-performing workers might cap at the amount they are able to earn in reimbursement, underperforming workers are often provided with salaries more than the rate of the market for their production and skill sets. Agreements of collective bargaining create major rewards for workers who may not be keen on growing output due to higher wage earning. Agreements of collective bargaining usually stripe incentives offered by organizations to underperforming workers to develop their productivity. The Service Employees International Union ensures that all employees get high wages and rewards for the work they perform. This union helps employees in getting wages in accordance with their skills and capabilities. With the help of this, employees feel highly motivated. This initiative is highly beneficial for lower level employees because it is usually perceived that they are uneducated so needs lesser wages, but in reality their skills need to be considered while deciding wages. So, Service Employees International Union focuses on providing wages to workers on the basis of their skills and experience. It assists in reducing turnover rate of employees and they feel valued, so their retention rate is increased (Goerke & Hillesheim, 2013).        

6.3. Bloated Pension Plans

Agreements of collective bargaining are promoted by SEIU in order to create pension plans and various other benefits which are favorable for workers. These benefits and pension plans improve the cost for each worker which is being paid by organizations and add larger rates of compensation than the open market. Agreements of pension plan might also need enterprises to finance pensions well after the decease or retirement of the workers. The increase in benefit and pension plans might also be looked forward by unions when deciding new agreements of collective bargaining, frequently increasing this business cost. These pension plans help in boosting motivating level of workers. With the help of this, the union management becomes capable of ensuring high performance of workers.        

6.4. Workforce Reduction

Companies may not be able to minimize the availability of jobs which can be offered by them when hiring unionized employees. Agreements of collective bargaining usually need companies to keep particular levels of employment for unionized employees. Even when there are business cycle downturns or sluggish economic times, enterprises may unable to diminish the workforce, with respect to bargaining agreement of the union. Enterprises may require engaging in special discussion in order to lessen the workforce while compensating for minor sales (Kubai, 2013).   

6.5. Considerations

According to Drahokoupil (2015), enterprises that provide above-average compensation and reasonable benefits packages to workers may forbid attempts of employees to create a union. Dealing employees with dignity and respect in the workplace can make sure that workers trust the enterprise and would not be encouraged to create a union at the workplace. Organizations are often caused by unions to struggle in order to form a competitive advantage in the market that is generally gained by manufacturing the least price consumer products possible. This can result in limiting the job benefits and progressions organizations can offer to workers.

6.6. Work Rules

The management of SEIU focuses highly on work rules in order to keep discipline within the organization. Work rules are set by the management and are disseminated to workers regarding safety processes, expectations and details of penalties in case of any non-compliance. The management of SEIU primarily focuses on strategies through which rules and standards are applied and enforced. In the case of any change in rules and regulations, they are completely negotiated with employees. SEIU completely ensures that employees follow ethical standards and practices. Through formulation and implementation of rules, standards, policies and proper regulations, Service Employees International Union ensures proper compliance of ethical practices. All rules are properly communicated to workers at the term of joining.

6.7. Safety Committees

In order to ensure the safety of workers, SEIU created and maintained a safety committee. In this committee, there are different representatives from management. The committee does a meeting on regular basis for discussing working conditions or any kind of proposed changes. This committee is also engaged in providing any kind of recommendations in order to bring improvements or modernizations to policies related to the safety of employees. This helps the SEIU in ensuring the proper safety and security of employees. This committee is responsible for ensuring that all employees are safe and protected. This provides mental satisfaction to employees that during working hours they are completely safe and secure and this makes them capable of working with full concentration. The safety committee indirectly helps in ensuring better performance of workers.

6.8. OSHA

In accordance with the requirement of government, SEIU integrated with Occupational Safety and Health Administration for enforcing federal safety regulations. The union works with the agency for ensuring health and safety of employees.

6.9. Improved Pay

Although in health care industry, most of the people do not work for getting wealthy and financially strong, but they work in order to help others in getting well. But in order to ensure better performance and long-term success of SEIU, it is important to pay competitive salaries to employees. This also helps in attracting talented and skilled staff. The management of SEIU provides extra incentives to experienced employees for staying in healthcare (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2016).

6.10. Longevity steps

The healthcare workers of SEIU have taken longevity steps, according to which they get guaranteed raises on the basis of years of service. This increases the motivation level of employees within the workplace by providing them rewards. Longevity steps give individuals with the incentive of staying at the facility, creating a stable and experienced staff of hardworking and dedicated workers.  

6.11. Secure Benefits

The management of SEIU provides enough secure benefits to its employees. On the basis of this, the union provides extra quality care for its employees and their families. This enhances the productivity of employees and their loyalty level is also increased.

6.12. Reasonable Policies for vacations

In order to ensure health and safety of employees and for making them feel valued, Service Employees International Union allow them enough vacations and sick leaves. This assists employees in staying healthy and spending time with their friends and families. The members of SEIU have also won protections and security against excessive overtime and management provide them different solutions for solving issues related to scheduling.

6.13. Employees’ Say

For ensuring high motivation level of employees, they are provided with the opportunity of raising a voice in decision making. The employees are allowed to give their suggestions during decision making and while formulating strategies the management asks from them. This helps SEIU in ensuring improved performance of workers. The environment of SEIU is created in such a way through which maximum relationship and linkage of managers and employees can be ensured. This helps the management in solving issues together. With the better relationship between management and employees, the union becomes capable of solving issues related to patient care and other related issues (Kubai, 2013).

7. Relationship with other Unions

According to Hurd & Lee (2014), managing, the unorganized is importantly a core aim of Service Employees International Union. Generally, this is because of the fact that union employees are motivated that it is necessary to create unions if interests of laboring individuals are to be advanced and protected. Various other reasons are also there due to which it is felt by Service Employees International Union that it is essential to building a strong relationship with some other unions. Insecurity is felt by unions as long as a substantial number of disorganized employees exist in any specific area or industry because it is thought by them that these disorganized employees will get all the work. It might be true if there are important labor cost disparities or if there is a strike. This is not unusual for prepared employers to debate that they cannot allow demands for various unions because it would not be possible to compete with disorganized workers due to the cost of demands. Therefore, Service Employees International Union is bound in such situations to make efforts to arrange the disorganized workers through integrating with other unions in order to protect extra incomes in organized enterprises. Moreover, the widest possible membership will provide the best political force and most efficient power position and will enhance the financial aspect of unions. The heads of two of the most influential and biggest labor unions – the American Federation of County, Municipal and State Workers and the Service Workers International Union – are implementing a plan which requires for uncommonly close collaboration in political bargaining, managing and campaigning in cities and states across the US.

The endeavor starts a mechanism which could result in the union of two enterprises, an effect that would result in creating largest labor union in the US with around 3.6 million members. In future, the two unions will take into account ways to accelerate the cooperation, including an official merger. There are 1.6 million members of the American Federation of Municipal, County and State Workers in which majority are government employees. On the other hand, there are 2 million members of Service Workers International Union in which there are an almost equal number of public and private sector employees. Around 80% of the membership of unions is in approximately twelve states, including major states Illinois, California and New York (Bryson & White, 2016).

According to Agrawal (2012), the idea behind the new planning was to merge the potential of enterprises at all levels in order to cope with the unparalleled attack on working individuals and rising injustices in the United States. “Unity partnerships” are planned by unions to explain such arrangements as a combined managerial oblige of home-care employees, and combined lobbying endeavors to convince lawmakers of the state to enhance funding for public schools and hospitals. The advantages of the planning would be that by doing so unions could reconcile on usual approaches and messages despite tugging in opposite directions, and the fixed costs duplication could be eliminated – for advertisements, direct e-mails, banks and phones. It is also said by the officials of the union that they hope that combined endeavors would stop politicians from playing unions in oppose to each other during promoting finance for their campaigns, an activity which according to unions were annoying for them but were usually powerless to prevent.

These two large unions with two of the other huge unions of public sector – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – have intensified collaboration already in recent times. All these unions are involved in combined field enlistment endeavors during midterm elections of 2014 and employed closely on the approach surrounding an official challenge by reactionaries looking for prohibiting agreements of any union from needing government workers to pay a debt to unions which portray them. The unions’ members frequently stress the conventional disparities between enterprises and say that the officials of local unions in several states might be unwilling to join together. However, two of these unions are recognized for spending in political campaigns and their expertise, the Service Workers union is widely considered as willing to take chances in arranged employees and is more innovative (Fossum, 2014).  

The Service Workers International Unions have expended $10 million supporting the clash for ‘15’ movement, which focused on the issues of fast food employees. The endeavor brought no instant advantage in the shape of fresh members – thing most conventional unions enforce as a circumstance of expending a large number of arranged employees. But it encouraged various states and cities to make an agreement of $15 minimum income for next two to three years, which will provide an advantage to a large number of members and other employees.                                                       

8. Conclusion

It can be concluded from above analysis that the trade union movement is considered as a significant component of the United States economy due to its representation of needs and interests of employees to government and managers. Service Employees International Union has provided key benefits to employees with respect to negotiations with the managerial staff for increased incomes, health, and safety. Service Employees International Union has considerably affected wages of employees and enhanced efficiency. Moreover, this union plays a significant role in managing grievances, safety of job and taking care of other working situations. An employee can achieve a voice in nearly every factor of his/her job through a union. While operating in the industry, the Service Employees International Union has to face a lot of challenges and there is a need of tackling these challenges in an effective and appropriate way for getting success. In addition to this, it has been found that valuable psychological and social functions are performed by Service Employees International Union. The Union is highly affiliated with political activities and spent a heavy amount on political activities like elections. The Service Employees International Union is also linked with different other unions in order to ensure improved performance and safety of workers.

9. Recommendations

The systems of a trade union have recognized to be bureaucratic and complex. Once a decision has been made, it is very difficult to change it. Also, they are recognized to focus on what they own irrespective of what the large community wants. So, Service Employees International Union should break these conventional procedures by implementing the managing model factors, which is linked with social unionism movement. It is difficult to avoid economic globalization, and as it is said that if one is not able to strike them, join them, it is needed for Service Employees International Union to discover a way of overcoming the negative effects of globalization. For instance by stepping out of comfort area and interacting more with local communities and social networks, acknowledging environment of employees both internal and external to the workplace, working beside those who do not integrate with an assorted workforce which involves immigrant employees and young generation and shares their views. The alterations might not be so swift, but can be achieved through continuous effort and hard work.           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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