January 10, 2025
The powerful Service Employees International Union has reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO after a 19-year split, further uniting organized labor less than two weeks before Donald Trump is sworn in as the nation’s 47th president.
The addition of SEIU will expand the AFL-CIO to 15 million members, formidable opposition for an incoming administration that’s expected to attempt to dismantle many of the union-friendly reforms put in place by President Joe Biden.
“This is fantastic news for labor,” said UUP President Fred Kowal. “Now more than ever workers need to stand together in the face of whatever attacks and challenges are flung our way by the new administration. Our unified voice has just gotten a lot louder and our power base much stronger.”
The agreement was announced Jan. 8.
The SEIU, one of America’s fastest-growing unions, is the nation’s largest health care union, the largest property services union, and the second-largest public employees union. The union’s successful “Fight for $15” campaign helped raise the minimum wage in states across the country.
The AFL-CIO, which represents members in 61 unions across the country and internationally, is one of the largest labor federations in the world. UUP is affiliated with the AFL-CIO; Kowal is a member of the New York State AFL-CIO’s Executive Council.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the SEIU’s decision to rejoin the AFL-CIO “a BFD,” according to the Huff Post.
"Workers know it’s better in a union, and together we are stronger in our organizing and bargaining fights because there is power in unity,” Shuler said in an AFL-CIO press release. “CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see workers divided, but we're standing here today with greater solidarity than ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they’d join a union tomorrow if the laws allowed, and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in America the basic right to organize on the job.”
“SEIU members are ready to unleash a new era of worker power, as millions of service and care workers unite with workers at the AFL-CIO to build our unions in every industry and every ZIP code,” said SEIU International President April Verrett. “We are ready to stand up to union-busters at corporations and in government and rewrite the outdated, sexist, racist labor laws that hold us all back. We’re so proud to join together as nearly 15 million members to redouble our commitment to building a thriving, healthy future for working people.”
AFT President Randi Weingarten said the agreement will serve to strengthen labor as Trump heads to the White House for his second term.
“The timing couldn’t be better,” Weingarten said in an email to members. “We know so many workers want to better their lives, and the best way to do that is with a strong labor movement that can organize workers everywhere.”
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a union-friendly nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank, said the agreement sends a “powerful message” to Trump that labor is united and strong.
“By standing together, SEIU and the AFL-CIO are sending a powerful message to President-elect Trump and his allies who are trying to pit working people against one another: The labor movement will not be fractured or silenced. Unions are a crucial part of a robust and fair economy—and SEIU’s affiliation with the AFL-CIO strengthens the collective power of millions of workers, enabling them to fight more effectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions. It also amplifies labor’s voice in advocating for progressive economic reforms that benefit all working families.”
Negotiations to bring SEIU back to the AFL-CIO began nearly two years ago. SEIU split from the AFL-CIO in 2005 along with the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers because the unions believed the AFL-CIO was focusing too much on politics and not enough on organizing and signing up new members.
They, along with several other unions formed a rival federation called the Change to Win Coalition (now called the Strategic Organizing Center) in September 2005. The UFCW reaffiliated with the AFL-CIO in 2013. The Teamsters have not rejoined the AFL-CIO.