Watch Out: Here Comes SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana!
Healthcare and Childcare workers in Illinois and Indiana are about to become--and feel--more powerful
First all-staff informational meeting to discuss creation of a new Union.
Three SEIU Healthcare locals, all based in Chicago, are about to joinforces to form SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana. Locals 4, 20, and 880have, until now, represented nursing home, hospital, homecare andchildcare workers. Early this Spring, all of them will be in a brand new 90,000 – member Union.
Keith Kelleher
Head Organizer,
SEIU Healthcare Local 880
"It became increasingly clear to us that we were doing something important. Chicago is reputed to be a Union town, but it is much less so than it used to be. The packinghouses are gone. The steel mills are shut down. Like the rest of the country, we've gone from a manufacturing to a service economy. There are 500-600,000 unorganized healthcare workers in Illinois. With our three Locals combined, we are only 90,000. It would take us a hundred years to organize the unorganized if we were doing it as three Locals instead of one.
"I actually first started thinking about the idea of combining our locals nine years ago," says Local 880 Head Organizer Keith Kelleher. "But the timing wasn't right. It wasn't until 18 months ago, after Hal Ruddick became President of Local 4 and Byron Hobbs was President of Local 20, that we began having informal discussions about it.
"It just makes sense. All of us are going after the same pot of money in Springfield [the Illinois state capital]. We might as well go after it as one big united Local."
SEIU Healthcare - Local 880 currently has 68,000 homecare workers--both private and public sector--and childcare workers with eight offices and 90 staff members throughout Illinois, and a small contingent in Indiana.
"The idea of combining strength was obvious a long time ago, knowing there were three SEIU healthcare Locals in Chicago," says Hal Ruddick, President of Local 4, representing 9,000 nursing home workers, largely in the Chicago Metro area. "But at least for those of us in Local 4, we weren't ready until now. Our Local was placed into trusteeship in 2003. We had stagnated, members were not engaged, we didn't challenge the employers, and we had no political program.
"But slowly we were able to rebuild the Local and confront the employers so that in 2005 we were able to get the best contract we ever had, especially with organizing rights and rights on the job."
In 2005, the trusteeship was removed and Ruddick and his leadership team were elected. They began to organize beyond the Chicago area, and started building real rank-and-file participation.
"With all of this going on," Hal says, "it wasn't until last year that we were able to take a breath and consider the idea of joining forces with Local 880 and Local 20. We were no longer in crisis. So it seemed like the logical step to take us to the next level, to organize on scale and raise standards."
Byron Hobbs has been President of Local 20 for the past four years. The Local has 7,300 members, almost all of whom are hospital workers in the Chicago area, it also represents 700 members in Indiana, where the Local maintains a satellite office in Gary. Local 20's biggest bargaining unit is at Cook County Hospital where, with 2,000 members, the Union is wall-to-wall, except for the nurses.
"The combining of forces makes all the sense in the world for us," Byron says. "By coming together, our members will be better off. It's as simple as that. We'll be working together as one rather than working separately as three Locals. When you only have 7,000 members and not enough resources, it limits what you can do. But coming together, we'll have economies of scale."
Hal Ruddick
President,
SEIU Healthcare Local 4
There are still growth opportunities in the nursing home industry,especially with our contractual organizing rights. We actually haverelatively high density in the nursing homes-about 25 percent ofnursing home workers here are in SEIU--but our basic standards in termsof wages, pensions and benefits are low. We want to use our combinedpolitical strength to raise these standards.
"When SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana comes into being, we'll be in a much better position to organize the 4,000 or so workers in our community hospitals and the residual workers where we are already organized. We also hope to be part of the national organizing drive among the Catholic hospitals."
As with any transition to something new, the move to SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana has caused some concerns.
Byron Hobbs
President, SEIU Healthcare Local 20
"By coming together, our members will be better off. It's as simple as that. We'll be working together as one, rather than working separately as three Locals."
Hal says that, in order to alleviate concerns among the Local'sactivists and staff, "the key was that the three Locals allacknowledged that we each have particular strengths. We look on this ascreating something new, not merging with or being absorbed by someoneelse. This makes it exciting, not a cause for anxiety."
"Also,we've kept our focus on the future benefits. We want to have dedicatedstaff to reach new members. We want to strengthen our political programto help us in our bargaining and achieve effective standards across theboard. We want to put real resources into increasing member involvementand mobilization. We want to be a player in Indiana politics so we canbecome a real force there in homecare organizing."
Members of the three Locals will vote on the creation of SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana in the early Spring and anticipate holding elections for officers then. “Hopefully,” says Keith, “Our new board will take their oath of office at the SEIU Convention in June.”
Byron says that they are good to go. "Really, there's no downside to this move."
