LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 24, 2024 – Hundreds of Los Angeles County SEIU 721 members rally to announce overwhelming support for an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike authorization vote during a rally in front of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles on September 24, 2024. Dozens of SEIU 721 county workers shut down a Board of Supervisors meeting for several minutes inside the Hall of Administration. “We have had it with LA County’s attempts at union busting and we are ready to strike,” said SEIU 721 President David Green, a Children’s Social Worker with the LA County Dept. of Children & Family Services for more than two decades. Though segments of LA County’s workforce have come close to striking most recently inMay of 2022, when thousands of nurses reached an eleventh hour deal over stronger job protections and better compensation a full-fledged strike of SEIU 721-represented bargaining units has not taken place in decades. This time, a ULP strike would include almost all of the LA County workforce and impact most services within the County’s 4,751 square mile service area. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Genaro Molina | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Nearly 20 years after they parted ways, two major unions announced that they’re reuniting just days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office again.
The Service Employees International Union said Wednesday it is re-joining the AFL-CIO, a group comprising 60 affiliated labor unions. With the addition of SEIU, its membership will expand to 15 million workers.
The second Trump administration, which begins in less than two weeks, is expected to take a decidedly different view of labor unions compared with the Biden administration. The leaders of the AFL-CIO and SEIU, however, said the decision to unite was not political.
“The notion that this is political couldn’t be further from the truth in terms of the election results,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in an interview.
At the same time, the union leaders said they are prepared to defend workers as Trump enters office. Both unions had endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race, arguing that Trump’s agenda would be “devastating” and “anti-worker.”
“We do not have rose-colored glasses on about the threats that could be coming our way,” SEIU International President April Verrett said in an interview.
Shuler said the unions will tap into their organizing power to respond to threats with a “really robust defense” while also going on the offensive.
“We are the, probably, only institution in the country that has an infrastructure in every city, in every state, in every workplace, that is a mobilizing machine,” she said. “And as they say, outside power builds inside power.”
About 2 million SEIU members work in hospitals, schools, law enforcement and other settings. The AFL-CIO’s affiliated unions include the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers. Union members are employed across the country at a variety of large companies, including General Motors, Disney and the U.S. Postal Service.
Shuler and Verrett said conversations about joining forces had been ongoing for years.
“This is a key moment, of course, it’s a strong signal, but it’s something that’s been building and something we think is going to really be for the long term,” Shuler said, noting that she has been working with SEIU to increase collaboration since she started her presidency in 2021.
Verrett said the SEIU board gave permission in June 2023 for the union to have more formal conversations with the AFL-CIO about joining the affiliation.
The announcement brings SEIU into “part of the broader federation in decision making about priorities,” said Ken Jacobs, a senior policy adviser at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. He referred to the first Trump administration as being “extremely hostile to labor.”
“I think this is also a pretty clear reflection of recognition of how important labor unity is going to be in this next four years, when we have a Trump administration that we can expect to be hostile to the interests of working people,” Jacobs said.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
Trump has promised to bring back jobs that had gone overseas, as well as revitalize the auto industry.
Meanwhile, Trump allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-heads of the new nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, have proposed large-scale employment changes for government workers in the coming Trump administration, prompting backlash from unions. Trump has criticized the United Auto Workers, and numerous unions endorsed Harris last year.
Still, Trump’s efforts to win over union workers proved effective in getting one major union, the Teamsters, to decline to endorse a presidential candidate after years of supporting Democrats.
