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Purple Power

Purple Power

The History and Global Impact of SEIU

Edited by Luís LM Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin

Contributions by Luís LM Aguiar, Adrienne E. Eaton, Janice Fine, Euan Gibb, Laurence Hamel-Roy, Tashlin Lakhani, Joseph A. McCartin, Yanick Noiseux, Benjamin L Peterson, Allison Porter, Alyssa May Kuchinski, Maite Tapia, Veronica Terriquez and Kyoung-Hee Yu

Published by: University of Illinois Press

Imprint: University of Illinois Press

1 line drawing, 1 map, 3 charts, 8 tables

Digital download
9780252053757
Published: January 2023

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

Chartered in 1921, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a worldwide organization that represents more than two million workers in occupations from healthcare and government service to custodians and taxi drivers. Women form more than half the membership while people in minority groups make up approximately forty percent.

Luís LM Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin edit essays on one of contemporary labor’s bedrock organizations. The contributors explore key episodes, themes, and features in the union’s recent history and evaluate SEIU as a union with global aspirations and impact. The first section traces the SEIU’s growth in the last and current centuries. The second section offers in-depth studies of key campaigns in the United States, including the Justice for Janitors and Fight for $15 movements. The third section focuses on the SEIU’s work representing low-wage workers in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Brazil. An interview with Justice for Janitors architect Stephen Lerner rounds out the volume.

Contributors: Luís LM Aguiar, Adrienne E. Eaton, Janice Fine, Euan Gibb, Laurence Hamel-Roy, Tashlin Lakhani, Joseph A. McCartin, Yanick Noiseux, Benjamin L. Peterson, Allison Porter, Alyssa May Kuchinski, Maite Tapia, Veronica Terriquez, and Kyoung-Hee Yu

Acknowledgments

1 Seeing Purple: An Introduction to the History and Global Significance of SEIU Joseph A. McCartin and Luís LM Aguiar

Part I. Dynamics of Growth and Transformation

2 From Flats to the White House: A Brief History of SEIU, 1910-2010 Benjamin L. Peterson

3 Reconciling Progressive Idealism with Centralized Control: An Institutional Analysis of SEIU’s GrowthKyoung-Hee Yu

4 Becoming Purple: Organizational Change at SEIU During the Andy Stern YearsAdrienne E. Eaton, Janice Fine, and Allison Porter Part

II. Developing the Organizing Model 5 Persistence, Militancy, and Power: The Evolution of Justice for Janitors from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., 1987-1998 Alyssa May Kuchinski and Joseph A. McCartin

6 Rank-and-File Leadership Development and Its Implications for Education Justice Veronica Terriquez

7 Organizing Fast Food: Opportunities, Challenges, and SEIU Maite Tapia and Tashlin Lakhani

Part III. Global Influence and Its Challenges

8 Renewing Union Practices and Strategies: A Case Study of SEIU’s Sweet $16 Campaign in Ontario, Canada Laurence Hamel-Roy and Yanick Noiseux

9 The Global Career of Justice for Janitors and the Limits of Institutional Permeability Luís LM Aguiar

10 Organizing Strategies without Borders: The Case of Brazil Euan Gibb and Luís LM Aguiar Part

IV. Assessing the Legacy and Employing the Lessons of SEIU

11 The Legacy of Justice for Janitors and SEIU for the Labor Movement: An Interview with Stephen Lerner Stephen Lerner and Joseph A. McCartin

Conclusion: The Future of SEIU and (Post-Neoliberal?) Labor Luís LM Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin

Contributors

Index

Luís LM Aguiar is associate professor of sociology in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He is coeditor of The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy. Joseph A. McCartin is a professor of history and executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America.

"Louis Aguiar and Joseph McCartin have assembled a collection of laudatory essays, by labor-oriented academics, on SEIU’s history as a healthcare, public employee, and service sector union, how it developed signature campaigns among janitors and fast food workers, and then promoted its ‘organizing model’ among labor federations abroad." --BeyondChron

“A very stimulating read. The book’s multidisciplinary approach brings together a wide range of perspectives that increase the level of insight into the SEIU and the broader issue of labor organizing for precarious workers. It also highlights the complexity of the SEIU and challenges commentators who unquestionably praise the union’s role in the U.S. labor movement, or dismiss it.”--Greg Patmore, author of Innovative Consumer Co-operatives: The Rise and Fall of Berkeley