SMART is an international rank-and-file movement for the democratic reform of SEIU. We are leaders from many local unions, and from every division of SEIU: public-sector, property services and healthcare.
We are organized rank-and-file members who believe that members are the real source of strength for our Union and the people behind every victory.
Members have fought for years in our work sites, in the streets, and in the halls of government to make SEIU the largest and strongest union in the country – now two million workers strong. Members also know that growth is critical to our success, and to rebuilding a fighting labor movement – but not growth at all costs, and not without full participation of the members.
In the name of growth, some recent agreements orchestrated by SEIU’s leadership have traded away high contract standards, limited members’ free speech and ability to protect the public we serve, and compromised our right to strike. All this has been done without real member involvement.
Many in SEIU have grave concerns that in recent years, SEIU’s leadership in D.C. has drifted away from the membership, forgetting that we are the ones who make our union strong. Dozens of mergers have been imposed without any member involvement or democratic procedures, elected leaders have been replaced with appointed ones. Constitutional changes have given the president and international union’s executive board unprecedented powers to force coordinated bargaining, appoint our bargaining teams, and settle our contracts.
It’s time to remind our leaders that SEIU is a union of, by, and for the members!
- Member dues pay their salaries
- Members fight to win every day in the workplace
- Members are the political voice and power needed to win in government
- Members are the most effective organizers of new workers
- Members win the victories that generate SEIU’s growth.
SMART is building a membership reform movement that will:
- Prevent the recent abuses of power by our leaders
- Preserve democracy, member decision-making and involvement
- Focus on winning higher standards along with growth.
We Believe:
- SEIU is OUR union. Members have made it successful.
- SEIU must be democratic, bottom-up and rooted in the membership with strong member leaders, to win.
- SEIU must negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness and fight when necessary.
- All members must have the right to vote for SEIU officers, negotiating teams, on our contracts, and to authorize strikes.
- We must have right to vote by Local on mergers or reorganizations, elect officers of new locals quickly, and expect that Locals will never be trusteed for political reasons.
- Members must play lead roles in organizing in our core industries. Strong contracts are the best motivator for new members to join SEIU.
- Contracts must protect workers’ rights and standards of existing members. We do not believe in second-class workers or second-class contracts.
- SEIU must advocate for the communities we serve on the job, and ensure adequate funding for public services.
- We must re-unite and rebuild the labor movement, and we must build political power to demand real social and economic justice.
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