According to reports
The SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is a labor group that speaks for over 1.9 million workers (Alberti, 2016). Also, the union represents over 100 occupations in both Canada and the United States. The Service Workers International Union's main goal is to organize its workforce across three industries. These industries specifically include those that provide for the public's health, health care, and property services. The union has more than 150 branches in the area. The Canadian Labor Congress and the Change to Win Federation are a couple of its affiliates (Dzemishkevych, 2016). Its main office is in Washington, D.C. SEIU’s Organizational Structure’s Design
About 2% of the membership of the union is considered retirees. These retirees have the eligibility to vote in the union. Within the organizational structure, there are also some non-members. Such non-members mainly help in paying the agency fee. The agency fee payers have increased in number since 2005 to reach about 10% of the size of the membership of the union. Precisely, the numbers accounted for about 200,000 non-members paying agency fees and approximately 35,000 retirees, compared to the 1.9 million members who are regular (Tong, 2015).
Industries of Operation
SEIU operates mainly in three industries. These industries include public health, healthcare, and property services. In fact, about 50% of the SEIU members work in the field of healthcare (Alberti, 2016). The public service has the state and local employees of the government. Finally, the security officers, janitors, as well as the food service workers are included within the property services.
Period of Existence
According to Alberti (2016), SEIU had existed since 1921 when it was founded in Chicago as the BSEU (Building Service Employees Union). Previously, its members constituted the operators of elevators, janitors, and window washers. In 2003, the union founded New Unity Partnership. Again, it becomes a Change to Win Coalition's founding member in 2005.
Legal Disputes
Case 1: The Parties Involved Sodexo and SEIU
The parties that were participating, in this case, include Sodexo and SEIU. In 2009, the Service Employees International Union decided to launch a countrywide campaign against the Sodexo Company. Apparently, SEIU mainly criticizes the labor standards of the company.
The Conflict
Here, the conflict revolved around the labor standards of the Sodexo Company that the union was not happy about (Tong, 2015). As a result, the strategy of the union involved organizing the group of students for pressuring the administrators at the universities to kick Sodexo out of the cafeterias of the school unless the company allowed unionization.
Actions Taken
Adverse actions were taken by the union against the company (Tong, 2015). Already noted, the strategy of the union involved organizing the group of students for pressuring the administrators at the universities to kick Sodexo out of the cafeterias of the school unless the company allowed unionization. Moreover, SEIU engaged in vandalism, harassment, blackmail, lobbying the violation of the law, and trespassing as claimed by the Sodexo Company. According to the company, SEIU acted illegally.
Dispute Resolution
The Sodexo Company resorted to filing a civil lawsuit against the union to resolve the dispute. Precisely, the lawsuit was filed on March 17, 2011under the Act of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Alberti, 2016).
Final Outcome
There was a document that SEIU co-wrote to detail how the pressure from outside can involve relationship jeopardy between the employer and the stockholders, lenders, politicians, investors, or others who supply the employees with the funds. This document included tactics such as extortion, blackmail and so on. Following the discovery of the document by the court, SEIU terminated its public campaign, and Sodexo withdrew the lawsuit as the settlement was reached.
Case II: The Parties Involved the UHW (United Health Workers) and SEIU
This case court involving the United Health Workers and the Service Employees International Union was decided on March 26, 2013 (Alberti, 2016).
Conflict
The conflict revolved around the realignment controversy of the long-term care worker that was accelerating (Tong, 2015). In effect, there was an escalation of tensions between the UHW and the international union.
Actions Taken
The international union, SEIU began bearing in consideration some of the methods of placing United Health Workers into trusteeship. In fact, SEIU is granted authority by its constitution to place any local union into trusteeship. This procedure helps in protecting the membership’s interest from the malfeasance of the local union (Dzemishkevych, 2016).
Dispute Resolution
In this case, the settlement of disputes involved litigation that began in March 2009. At this point, the Service Employees International Union sought a TRO (temporary restraining order) from the court of the United States District requiring the return of all property of UHW that the defendants were possessing.
Final Outcome
The judgment of the district court was affirmed by the panel after a jury trial in light of the Act of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure against the officials of the local union. Evidently, these officials diverted the resources of the association with the primary goal of establishing a new competing local union. Also, the panel concluded that the district court was right to read the verdict for imposing several liabilities on the defendant. The kind of breach involved a conducting pattern to engage in dual unionism as opposed to the protected speech (Dzemishkevych, 2016).
Case III: The Parties Involved Knox versus SEIU
This legal dispute involving the Service Employees International Union and Diana Knox was argued on January 10, 2012. Eventually, the case was decided on June 21, the same year.
Nature of the Dispute
In June 2005, the Service Employees International Union decided to send out its yearly Hudson notice. Here, the members were given 30 days for opting out of the dues of the union. Instead, they were to make payment for only the fair share.
Actions Taken
Shortly after the expiry of the opt out deadline, the Service Employees International Union decided to mail a notice to all the workers. The union announced an emergency fee for building a "Fund for Political Fight Back." All employees had their fee automatically deducted from their subsequent paychecks until after the California gubernatorial election of 2006.
Dispute Resolution
In trying to resolve this issue, plaintiff employees of the State filed a class action lawsuit on November 1, 2005, in Sacramento Federal Court. The employees were alleging the Service Employees International Union’s emergency fee. It was a form of violating the First Amendment (Alberti, 2016).
Final Outcome
In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court held that other non-members of the SEIU including Dina Knox failed to receive the required notice of twelve million dollars that were charged by the union for raising the political fund. Further, in a tighter ruling of 5-4, the court also held that there was an insufficiency in the requirement that contracts the non-union members to be to covered by the union.
References
Alberti, G. (2016). Jamie McCallum, Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing McCallum Jamie, Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labour Organizing, Ithaca, NY and London: ILR Press, 2013; 232 pp., ISBN 9780801451935, US$68.50 (hbk), US$21.95 (pbk). Journal of Industrial Relations, 58(1), 159-161. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022185615609817a
Dzemishkevych, I. (2016). ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT OF ACCOUNTING OF CREDIT UNIONS ACTIVITIES IN UKRAINE. EUREKA: Social and Humanities, 1, 24-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.21303/2504-5571.2016.00017
Tong, Z. (2015). Labor Unions and Forms of Corporate Liquidity. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 42(7-8), 1007-1039. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jbfa.12122
