Our Platform for Change

Ratified by the UHW Executive Board on January 4, 2008

This Platform for Change was adopted by UHW's elected, rank-and-file Executive Board. It outlines a core set of principles - union democracy, transparency, and member participation in decision-making - that will strengthen SEIU from within.

We'll be taking this platform to the SEIU Convention in Puerto Rico this summer. Without these basic principles as our foundation, our International union will be unable to meet the challenges facing workers and the labor movement. These proposals will be voted on as amendments to the SEIU constitution and resolutions adopted by the convention:

• UHW Proposed Constitutional Amendments for SEIU Convention (PDF)
  
  
• UHW Proposed Resolutions for SEIU Convention (PDF)
  
  

UNION DEMOCRACY: ONE MEMBER, ONE VOTE

• Guarantee members' rights to vote on contract proposals and collective bargaining agreements as well as election agreements with our employers that set the terms for unorganized workers to join our union.
• Ensure members' rights to participate in and elect representatives to bargaining committees that negotiate on our behalf.
• Utilize membership voting rules based on a per capita basis to ensure one member, one vote.
• Implement constitutionally a Unity Council structure that guarantees per capita voting, rank-and-fi le participation, and voting only by members.
• Elect all International union officers through a direct election by members.

•  Focus on SEIU's core industries, build from where we have a base of members, and ensure that worker leaders are central in all campaigns.
•  Through Unity Councils, develop a plan that combines the strength of local unions in coordination with the national union.
• Oppose election agreements that give up long-term power to employers and limit full collective bargaining rights.
• Oppose election agreements that relegate certain workers to second-class status.
• Design a leadership development and training program for staff and rank-and-file members to lead organizing campaigns.
• Focus beyond merely increasing numbers, to truly changing workers' lives.

• Fight to win standards to ensure that workers who perform the same work earn the same pay and benefi ts, regardless of where they work or who they work for.
•   Strengthen our ability to advocate for patients, nursing home residents, and homecare consumers.
• Establish employer relations from a position of strength.
• Establish contract standards within the Divisions of SEIU, including systems of accountability so that all locals can achieve these industry standards.
• Focus on developing and training a corps of experienced staff and member organizers to lead contract campaigns.
• Develop a real national strike fund with signifi cant benefits.
• Support coordinated, national bargaining campaigns by industry.
• Develop a political program to ensure adequate government funding for essential healthcare, social and public services.

•   Build unity, rather than divide the labor movement, including the possibility of a new, unifi ed labor organization that includes SEIU, AFL-CIO, Change to Win and non-affi liated unions.
•   Focus on building power and raising standards in the core industries in SEIU.
•   Work with trade unions globally with the goal of building real power for workers.
•   Win labor law reform, including the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and a ban on permanent striker replacements.
•   Achieve national healthcare reform that leads to a single-payer system.
•   Accomplish real immigration reform.
•   Fight for social and economic justice to ensure a society free from discrimination and prejudice.
•   Build a progressive majority in the country as a counterbalance to the power of multinational corporations.