SEIU Local 2000

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New Partnerships Offer New Hope for Workers

Since Labor Day 2005, SEIU members initiated new relationships with responsible employers to raise standards for workers and help their employers improve services and increase their competitive advantage.

A first-of-its-kind national agreement with Addus, a major home care agency. With a senior population projected to double in the coming years, demand for in-home care continues to grow faster than the workforce. Addus is addressing the needs of seniors and people with disabilities by providing caregivers paid leave to meet with legislators on key long-term care issues. The pact enables workers to unite through a fair election process and bargain collectively nationwide, a big step towards improving quality care by reducing the high rate of turnover in the industry due to low wages, poor benefits, and inadequate funding.

A pledge from Maguire Properties, the largest building owner in downtown Los Angeles, to transform the private security industry. In signaling their willingness to work with SEIU to create good jobs and to call for higher standards across the city, Maguire Properties agreed to respect security officers' freedom to form a union and to jointly subsidize a new training fund. Plans are under way to create and implement a pilot program that will serve as a model to better prepare private security officers to safeguard the city.

The first-ever strategic alliance in the Midwest between SEIU and Allina, a major hospital system in Minnesota, centered on improving the quality of patient care. Caregivers are now working side-by-side with management to solve problems and have a voice on the policies and decisions that affect working conditions and the patients in their care. This cooperation helps improve the hospitals' competitive performance and can help them achieve a reputation as an industry leader. The agreement also allows health care workers to unite within their industry. Allina also agreed to a first contract that offers gains in affordable health insurance for employees and their families, and 8.5% wage increases over a two-year period to recruit and retain front-line caregivers.

SEIU is helping to ensure that everyone benefits fairly in the global economy by teaming up with overseas unions such as the Transport and General Workers Union in the U.K., and employers in their sectors including Sweden-based Securitas to challenge other multinationals to provide decent wages and benefits, raise safety and training standards, and respect workers' freedom to form unions in the countries and industries in which they operate.

“We can build a country that works for everyone in the 21st century but it's going to take a new kind of cooperation to ensure that working people and their employers are partners for a better future. "We are changing to be a part of the solution. It's time for U.S. businesses to share this vision and view working people and their unions as ready, willing and able partners.” – SEIU President Andy Stern