A union representing some 2 million workers is rejoining one of the largest unions in the country, the unions announced on Jan. 8, days ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which left the AFL-CIO in 2005, is merging with the AFL-CIO.
The SEIU has about 2 million workers in sectors such as health care and food services. The AFL-CIO has more than 12.5 million members working in fields such as construction and transportation.
“SEIU members are ready to unleash a new era of worker power,“ April Verrett, SEIU’s president, said in a statement. She added later, ”We are ready to stand up to union-busters at corporations and in government and rewrite the outdated, sexist, racist labor laws that hold us all back.”
Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO’s president, said in a statement, “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.”
President Joe Biden hailed the move, which he said would “help workers across the country to organize, earn higher wages, receive better benefits, and build retirement security.”
Trump, who is slated to be sworn in on Jan. 20, has not commented on the development. His transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Shuler and Verrett said in interviews that the merger was not a result of Trump winning the 2024 election and returning to the White House.
However, their shared goal is to be a political presence in a Trump-dominated Washington that has at times courted organized labor without necessarily backing the policies on wages, overtime, and unionization that the movement’s leadership has supported, they say.
“We are amassing our forces, building our strength and our power before the inauguration,” Shuler said. “Working people will continue to demand that our voices be heard.”
When the SEIU, along with the Teamsters union, left the AFL-CIO in 2005, the SEIU leadership saw the AFL-CIO as insufficient at slowing the declining share of U.S. workers who belong to unions. The decline has largely continued over the past 20 years, but union leadership says that 60 million workers would like to be unionized if they could and that the merger will lead to better organizing.
Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race, who ended up losing to Trump.
Trump’s labor secretary nominee, former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.), has shown support for some union policies.
AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of voters in November’s elections, found that 18 percent of the electorate came from union households, with 54 percent backing Harris and 44 percent voting for Trump.
