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The work of best representing our members takes place on a number of levels. There are contract negotiations, grievances, and sometimes even strikes. We have legal battles and fights to protect our rights in the courts. We organize new members into the union to protect the standards we set in bargaining and raise the bar for everyone. And then there is politics and the work we do at election time.

Contra Costa County workers have dealt with an epidemic of understaffing for far too long. That’s why a huge union coalition of nine unions—representing more than 6,200 County workers—has rallied across the county’s worksites for weeks to call attention to the staffing crisis and force the Board of Supervisors to take action.

Adjunct faculty and lecturers at Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit university in Silicon Valley, have been working to organize a non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty union for five years. After years of organizing, adjuncts and lecturers are currently voting in their long-awaited union election. Nevertheless, after years of organizing and union-busting, NTT faculty at Santa Clara are currently voting in their long-awaited union election.

To protect our rights, improve our working conditions and quality of life, and better our communities, the candidates we elect and the ballot measures we pass–or reject–matter. That’s especially true when it comes to local and state races. The 2022 statewide and midterm elections are our opportunity to showcase worker power at the ballot box. We have made significant progress over the last two years. Now, we must build upon our advancements.

Laguna Honda Hospital is San Francisco’s primary long-term care facility. The hospital provides San Franciscans with a complete continuum of care, including skilled nursing, rehabilitation, AIDS care, dementia services, hospice and acute care, as well as an adult day health care center and a senior nutrition program. It’s a remarkably unique facility, unlike virtually any other long-term care facility in the United States.

As many of San Francisco’s nonprofit union workers get set to bargain new contracts this year, a unifying problem is emerging across employers and worksites—we need a greater investment in services provided, and we need pay parity between nonprofit and public workers providing similar services.

This year, workers whose retirement benefits are governed by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System will have an opportunity to vote for a new member of the  Board of Administration. This is a crucial election, as Board members are responsible for setting employer contribution rates, determining investment asset allocations, providing actuarial valuations, and much more.

The following statement can be attributed to Theresa Rutherford, a Certified Nursing Assistant at Laguna Honda Hospital who is the elected Vice President of San Francisco for SEIU 1021:

November 19, 2021: Oakland, California — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 President Joseph Bryant issued the following statement after jurors acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of the murder of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Rittenhouse shot and killed Rosenbaum and Huber, who were protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by the Kenosha Police Department in Kenosha, Wisconsin:

On Sunday, March 3rd, members of Oakland Educators Association (OEA) voted to approve a contract that gets teachers on the path to better raises and smaller class sizes. The contract ratification ended a 7-day strike that united the community.

Teachers, classified workers, and students continue to speak out against the District’s cuts to programs and staff. Hundreds of students, joined by community allies, filled the Board meeting on March 4th.

SEIU 1021 member and Highland oncology nurse Maria Mendoza Sanchez will join Congress tonight at the State of the Union address . In 2017 Maria was deported by the Trump administration and torn away from her children. After a grueling time in Mexico, she applied for a skilled worker visa, and was recently accepted for return home to the United States. 
 
Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee invited Maria to be her guest at tonight’s address to bring to light the negative impact of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies. 
 

On January 19, 2019 at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts,more than 100 faculty, students and community supporters were outside the black-tie Golden Circle fundraiser in support of SCU adjuncts and lecturers voting on whether or not to join together in a union.

More than 600 member leaders convened in Concord on the weekend of September 22-23 for our member convention to chart the course for the future of our union and to hear from inspiring speakers on how we must transform and innovate to thrive during challenging times.

Last week, a federal court ruled that President Trump’s Executive Order threatening to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” is unconstitutional. The City of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against the Executive Order and SEIU 1021 members filed a formal brief in support of the lawsuit.

West Virginia teachers have shown that despite the failure of politicians to protect the rights of working people to organize, working people standing together are unstoppable. Striking teachers have shown that no court case or legislation can stop the power of solidarity and the willingness to stand up for justice.

West Virginia is among the handful of “right to work-for less” states, a fate that may soon be shared by California after the Supreme Court rules on Janus v AFSCME.

Supporters of social and economic justice have been on high alert since the election, beating back attacks on our civil rights and civil liberties as well as attempts to dismantle our education and healthcare systems. But extremists in Washington also have the environment in their crosshairs, and working people need to join together to protect our water, our air, and our health against corporations who are putting profits over people.

BERKELEY,CA — City of Berkeley employees and other city, county, schools, healthcare, and nonprofit workers from throughout Northern California joined thousands at the peaceful, non-violent Rally Against Hate on August 27. The rally stage was surrounded by thousands of students, teachers, seniors, and working families rallying to protest against far-right extremists, the white nationalist rally at Berkeley City Hall, and the wave of anti-immigrant federal policies.

For Head Start substitute teacher, Claudia Campbell, going back to school to get her degree seemed impossible:

“I’ve had my own children, and have taken care of others, but I’ve never had the education behind it,” Campbell said.

That is until the SEIU Early Educator Training Center, SEIU Local 1021, and the YMCA of the East Bay joined together to create an apprenticeship program that supports and uplifts Early Childhood Educators.

Join us for a rally and hearing to call out greedy hospitals and prescription drug companies. The fightback to protect affordable healthcare continues!

After months of pressure from SEIU members across the country, hundreds of allied organizations, and thousands of individuals of all political persuasions, the effort in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed late Thursday night.

SEIU 1021 members showed up in force at the Richmond City Council meeting on July 11th to advocate passing a $15 minimum wage ordinance. After hearing from our members and other individuals who testified, the Richmond City Council unanimously supported an ordinance to increase the city’s minimum wage.

Many people think of shrinking ice caps and disappearing rain forests when they hear the terms “environmental justice” and “climate justice.” But the reality of environmental devastation is much closer to home for many working people: Decades of corporations running roughshod over our land, water and air in the name of profit have left a toxic wake that disproportionately harms poor communities and communities of color.

SEIU 1021 members joined a crowd of a couple thousand people gathered at Lake Merritt in Oakland on a beautiful sunny Saturday, April 29, 2017, to urge the Trump administration to take the threat of climate change seriously. It was a truly striking moment of unity, organized by the People’s Climate Movement for Justice, Jobs, Peace and the Planet and was endorsed by SEIU 1021, the Alameda Central Labor Council, and 75 organizations working on behalf of environmental, economic, and social justice.

City Workers and Museum Patrons Call for Action to Stop Abuse and Corruption

Security guards,and admission attendants who are SEIU 1021 members at the Asian Art Museum, de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, testified on Friday about the rampant abuse and corruption by board members and top executives at the Fine Arts Museum (FAM) and the Corporation of Fine Arts Museums (COFAM). Their testimonies detailed financial mismanagement, lack of transparency, and unsafe working conditions at FAM and COFAM at the Government Audit Oversight Committee.

On International Workers’ Day, we honor the sacrifices workers and immigrants have made in the fight for justice.

Seize this moment in history. Demonstrate the strength of working people standing together. Show that we’re ready to defend worker and immigrant rights against fear and hate and that we have the power to stand up to the threats facing working families and our communities.

By building a mass movement in the streets that unites all of our struggles, we can win our fight for justice and dignity.

San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) adjunct professors ratified their first union contract on March 30.  The professors joined Local 1021 in 2014 to seek a voice on the job, collective bargaining rights and compensation commensurate with their contribution to the art institution.

The three-year agreement makes significant progress in job security, and the recruitment and retention of quality professors. Students will benefit too as their professors now enjoy the prospect of long-term, stable employment.

Last fall’s election served as a wake-up call to millions of working people nationwide whose previous political activity began and ended with voting. But with the new and unprecedented threats to economic stability, health care, civil rights and civil liberties of the vast majority of the country, citizen activists are rising up to resist the repressive changes coming from Washington.

Last week Congress took the first steps to strip Medi-Cal from millions, hike taxes on middle-class families and workers who buy insurance through the federal exchange, and to stick seniors with soaring prescription drug costs. And they voted set up a process to cut protections for patients with pre-existing conditions, contraceptive coverage, allowing children on their parents plan until age 26 and more.

In a stunning victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the indigenous rights and environmental justice movement, the federal government halted the Dakota Access Pipeline project. News of the victory arrived just one day before deadline for demonstrators occupying the North Dakota site to evacuate or face forcible eviction.

The Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday, Dec. 4 announced it would instead conduct an environmental impact review of the 1,170-mile pipeline project and determine if there are other ways to route it to avoid a crossing on the Missouri River.

Hundreds of Bay Area unionists turned out in Oakland Thursday, November 10 in solidiarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and their fight to stop the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Members of the Tribes have camped out at a pipeline construction site in North Dakota since August. SEIU 1021 was among the 25 local unions that co-sponsored the event, including the California Nurses Association (CNA) and unions united in the Alameda Labor Council.

A Message from SEIU 1021’s Executive Board

The struggle for the rights of working people happens on many levels. There is organizing and the hard work of bringing new members into the union. There are contract negotiations and sometimes, strikes. There are shop stewards and union staff who make sure contracts are enforced. There are legal battles and fights to protect our rights in the courts.

NDNU executives have unilaterally cut and overhauled programs that have resulted in upheaval on campus; the faculty union filed an unfair labor practice charge.

With the fate of millions of California seniors, now and into the next few decades, hanging in the balance, a state board heard hours of testimony March 1 and 3 before having to gather the political will and decide how – or even whether – to build new paths to retirement with dignity

SEIU 1021 members at Highland Hospital, community advocates and patients of the Substance Abuse Treatment center are celebrating the decision by Alameda Health System (AHS) Administrators to keep the doors of the treatment center open.

The notice came on the heels of a series of concerted actions to highlight the value of the center and the impact the closure would have on families throughout Alameda County.

Sunday, March 8, hundreds of adjunct professors, students, artists, low-wage workers, activists and artists joined forces at the Lab in San Francisco for No Justice No Service: Bay Area Art and Education Justice Festival.

Gov. Jerry Brown has ignored people with developmental disabilities in his budget. They, along with their service providers, feel betrayed. Budgeted at 1990 levels, and with over $1 billion cut by the state from their bottom line, California’s DD system is on the verge of collapse—and Jerry Brown has proposed doing next to nothing to save it.

Over 1,000 San Francisco City workers, nonprofit workers and residents marked Tax Day on April 15 with a major protest of the weakening of vital social services and of the increase in income inequality in the City under Mayor Lee’s economic initiatives.