The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced today it was reaffiliating with the AFL-CIO and launching a new, long-term effort to make it easier for workers to win a voice on our jobs with our unions. Two million SEIU service and care workers will join the nearly 13 million-member AFL-CIO, and together, these powerful organizations will push back on union-busting and win for working-class families.

At a critical moment when everything is on the line for the nation’s working people, the labor movement is uniting to challenge the status quo and build a movement of workers who will fight—on the job, in the streets, at the ballot box, in our communities—for higher pay, expanded benefits and new rules that empower us to join together in unions and organize across industries. 

"There is strength in unity, and the decision for SEIU to reaffiliate with the 60 unions that make up the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) only enhances our collective power in advocating for the hardworking people who drive America’s economy," said Dr. Leonard P. Pugliese, President of the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA). "AFSA is thrilled to welcome SEIU back into our immediate family, and we are confident that, together, we will accomplish great things in advancing the rights and well-being of working people across the nation."

"Workers know it’s better in a union, and together we are stronger in our organizing and bargaining fights because there is power in unity,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see workers divided, but we're standing here today with greater solidarity than ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they’d join a union tomorrow if the laws allowed and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in America the basic right to organize on the job.” 

With this news, millions of workers are doubling down on a vision to fundamentally transform our lives. Workers want to join unions because we know that pay is too low and grocery bills are too high. Child care costs as much as rent, which also costs more than it should. Everything we need to live is just one more chance for corporations to profit from us.

“SEIU members are ready to unleash a new era of worker power, as millions of service and care workers unite with workers at the AFL-CIO to build our unions in every industry and every ZIP code,” said SEIU International President April Verrett.“Working people have been organizing our workplaces and communities to build a stronger economy and democracy. We are ready to stand up to union-busters at corporations and in government and rewrite the outdated, sexist, racist labor laws that hold us all back. We’re so proud to join together as nearly 15 million members to redouble our commitment to building a thriving, healthy future for working people.”

Millions of workers across the United States are locked out of labor law, including critical protections and union rights, due to a history of systemic racism, sexism and fierce corporate opposition to unions. Nonetheless, over the past year working people have joined together to make significant gains, including electric bus manufacturing workers at Blue Bird winning a union contract in Georgia, drivers for ride-sharing services winning the right to join a union in Massachusetts, and workers across Missouri winning a $15 an hour minimum wage and guaranteed paid sick leave.   

AFL-CIO, SEIU to Take on Union-Busting, Rewrite Rules to Accelerate Organizing

Today, more than 60 million workers say they would join a union if they could—but only 1 in 10 workers has a union because big corporations are allowed to subject workers who organize to unrelenting hatred, harassment and hostility. Meanwhile, support for unions is at record highs as polling shows 7 in 10 Americans approve of unions, including 9 in 10 young people. The huge gap between workers who want to join a union and those who successfully do so represents a massive failure in law and public policy. 

In response, SEIU and the AFL-CIO are uniting to take on union-busting and secure the right of every worker to safely join with their co-workers in unions to raise wages and improve their jobs. Together, our united 15 million hardworking union members will:

• Fight for new rules to strengthen the right to organize and collectively bargain and expand those rights to cover workers who currently lack them, to build worker power within individual workplaces or across employers and entire industries, whether at the local, state, or federal levels.
• Hold elected leaders accountable for doing everything in their power to ensure that all workers can have good union jobs that pay us enough to live, with accessible, affordable, quality health care and the ability to retire with dignity.
• Demand every leader take action to write more inclusive and stronger labor laws, raise wages, and make sure that every public dollar spent goes toward creating good union jobs to build thriving communities for workers of all races and ethnicities.
• Support the efforts of workers across the nation to challenge union-busting corporations; drive multi-union, multi-sector organizing campaigns; coordinate strategy; maximize resources and capacity; and learn from their collective successes and challenges.