Purple Power

The History and Global Impact of SEIU

Luis LM Aguiar editor Joseph A McCartin editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Illinois Press

Published:24th Jan '23

Should be back in stock very soon

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Purple Power cover

Chartered in 1921, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a worldwide organization that represents more than two million workers in occupations from healthcare and government service to custodians and taxi drivers. Women form more than half the membership while people in minority groups make up approximately forty percent.

Luís LM Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin edit essays on one of contemporary labor’s bedrock organizations. The contributors explore key episodes, themes, and features in the union’s recent history and evaluate SEIU as a union with global aspirations and impact. The first section traces the SEIU’s growth in the last and current centuries. The second section offers in-depth studies of key campaigns in the United States, including the Justice for Janitors and Fight for $15 movements. The third section focuses on the SEIU’s work representing low-wage workers in Canada, Australia, Europe, and Brazil. An interview with Justice for Janitors architect Stephen Lerner rounds out the volume.

Contributors: Luís LM Aguiar, Adrienne E. Eaton, Janice Fine, Euan Gibb, Laurence Hamel-Roy, Tashlin Lakhani, Joseph A. McCartin, Yanick Noiseux, Benjamin L. Peterson, Allison Porter, Alyssa May Kuchinski, Maite Tapia, Veronica Terriquez, and Kyoung-Hee Yu

"Louis Aguiar and Joseph McCartin have assembled a collection of laudatory essays, by labor-oriented academics, on SEIU’s history as a healthcare, public employee, and service sector union, how it developed signature campaigns among janitors and fast food workers, and then promoted its ‘organizing model’ among labor federations abroad." --BeyondChron
“A very stimulating read. The book’s multidisciplinary approach brings together a wide range of perspectives that increase the level of insight into the SEIU and the broader issue of labor organizing for precarious workers. It also highlights the complexity of the SEIU and challenges commentators who unquestionably praise the union’s role in the U.S. labor movement, or dismiss it.”--Greg Patmore, author of Innovative Consumer Co-operatives: The Rise and Fall of Berkeley

ISBN: 9780252044717

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 454g

256 pages