SEIU Annual Report

Property
Services
With the nation’s economy in crisis and families struggling
to keep afloat, SEIU’s 250,000 property services members
worked harder than ever to fight for good-paying, stable jobs
that can help workers move into the middle class.
Uniting more workers
More than 6,000 new security officers united with SEIU in
2009, with 32,000 security officers nationwide now joined
together in the union.
• 2,000 Securitas officers at Kaiser Permanente facilities
won a three-year contract with wage increases, improved
healthcare, and paid sick days and holidays after a threeyear
campaign supported by SEIU 24/7 and SOULA
2006 in California, which are part of SEIU United Service
Workers West. An additional 450 Securitas officers
working at Yankee Stadium united with SEIU Local 32BJ.
• 1,100 Allied Barton and 1,820 FJC Security Services of
Long Island officers who provide security for the city of
New York, including the Staten Island ferry terminals, won
pay raises of up to 26 percent over three years and firsttime-ever
health insurance after uniting with SEIU Local
32BJ.
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• Seeking livable wages, health insurance, training and
better working conditions, about 1,000 security officers
who provide security for Los Angeles County united with
SEIU SOULA, winning their recognition campaign in
October.
• Local 2 Canada had a very busy year completing a merger
with Local 902 in Nova Scotia, leading to some rapid
growth with multisector workers in that province. The
local also successfully expanded the Justice for Janitors
campaigns beyond Toronto with wins in the Ottawa and
Vancouver markets.
Improving workers’ lives
• Local 32BJ janitors in Wilmington and New Castle
County, Del., won a historic areawide contract with wage
increases, health insurance, paid vacation and other
benefits. Nearly 800 office cleaners will see their wages
rise to $9.25 by the end of the two-year contract and for
the first time full-time workers will receive employer-paid
health benefits.
• 2009 saw many advances for California airport workers.
Workers at San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles
international airports all worked to maximize their
political power and passed living wage ordinances and
amendments to raise standards for all workers
at their airports. At LAX, some 2,500 workers—most
of whom organized with SEIU in the last two
years—went from having no healthcare at all to fully
employer-paid healthcare.
Multiservices workers
In 2009, Service Workers United, our national union of
multiservices workers, helped 2,000 food service, laundry and
janitorial workers unite for a voice on the job, with campaigns
under way reaching out to an additional 1,000 workers
employed by the three giant companies of Aramark, Sodexo
and Compass.
In December, SEIU kicked off a major campaign to reach
out to more than 30,000 food service, janitorial and laundry
workers employed by Sodexo, where workers make as little as
$8.27 an hour and often cannot afford the health insurance the
company offers.
Eighty members of Service Workers United traveled to
Washington, D.C., for a lobby day, urging Congress to
increase federal reimbursements for meals provided for lowincome
students and to improve worker standards in the
Child Nutrition Act. It was the first time front-line school food
services workers had voiced their concerns in person on
Capitol Hill. Although these workers’ mission is to fight poverty
and hunger some of them are paid as low as $6.55 an hour
with no benefits.
2010 and beyond
SEIU’s campaign to raise wages and standards for security
workers will reach out in 2010 to the more than 10,000
unorganized workers employed by Andrews International. It’s
one of the largest and fastest-growing security companies in
the United States, with the ability to provide good jobs and
healthcare benefits for its workers—yet it is driving a race to
the bottom with poverty-level wages and a long history of legal
violations, penalties and disregard for the law.
Janitorial members have set their sights on major contract
negotiations coming in 2011 and 2012. They have established
a national bargaining workgroup with the goal of using the
strength of the entire national union to win improvements and
more standardization across the agreements.
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