Oregon’s largest union is rejoining the state’s premier labor federation nearly 20 years after it left.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503 represents more than 72,000 workers, including state employees, nursing home workers, and caregivers in private homes employed through the Oregon Home Care Commission.
The Oregon AFL-CIO is a federation that serves its affiliated unions by coordinating political and legislative efforts and assisting organizing campaigns.
Local 503’s return to the Oregon AFL-CIO is a sign of increased local labor unity. It’s also a big boost in membership and resources for the state labor federation, which has been lauded by the national AFL-CIO as one of the most effective in the country.
Labor’s big split
Local 503 left the Oregon AFL-CIO in 2005 when its parent body led a group of unions out of the AFL-CIO. Those unions — SEIU, United Food and Commercial Workers, the Teamsters, and UNITE HERE — formed the Change to Win federation together with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, which had left the AFL-CIO a few years prior. Laborers and United Farm Workers (UFW) left the AFL-CIO the following year and also joined Change to Win. The breakaway unions represented about a third of the AFL-CIO by membership. It was the biggest split in the American labor movement since the unions of the CIO left the AFL in 1938 (those two federations eventually merged in 1955 to form what is now the AFL-CIO).
The march out of the AFL-CIO was led by Andy Stern, who was then president of the SEIU. His critique, echoed by the other unions, is that the AFL-CIO wasn’t focused enough on organizing non-union workers and lacked the power to make its autonomous affiliates coordinate their bargaining within industries.
But whatever strategies Change to Win unions undertook once they left, they fared no better on their own. Within three years, all but SEIU had continued to lose members. SEIU devotes more resources than any other union to organizing and has an enviable win rate in union elections, but even SEIU has grown less than 0.5% a year on average since it left the AFL-CIO.
Change to Win functioned as an ad hoc alliance and didn’t form enduring local structures like the AFL-CIO.
One by one, Change to Win affiliates left, starting with the Carpenters in 2009. Some returned to the AFL-CIO: UNITE HERE in 2009, Laborers in 2010, and UFCW in 2013. The latest to depart was the Teamsters, in 2022. In 2021 Change to Win rebranded itself as the Strategic Organizing Center. Its remaining unions are SEIU and UFW, plus Communications Workers of America, which also belongs to the AFL-CIO.
Getting back together
After the 2005 split, in order to maintain local unity, the national AFL-CIO approved procedures for locals of the breakaway unions to re-affiliate with its state and local bodies. For example, Teamsters Local 223 is an affiliate of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Locals 503 and 49 re-affiliated under the new charter in 2005, but left again the following year. It’s under those rules that Local 503 is able to rejoin the Oregon AFL-CIO. Local 49 doesn’t have plans to do the same.
At its biennial gathering in August, the SEIU Local 503’s leadership body, known as its general council, approved affiliation with the Oregon AFL-CIO. Local 503 will officially rejoin in December, just in time to weigh in on the federation’s 2025 legislative priorities.
The Oregon AFL-CIO is funded by per-member dues paid by affiliated unions. Though Local 503 represents 72,000 workers, only around 44,000 are members (Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s anti-union 2018 Janus decision, public employees who don’t want to pay union dues can freeload, letting their coworkers pay for their union representation).
Local 503 will become one of the Oregon AFL-CIO’s largest affiliates, adding its 44,000 members to the Oregon AFL-CIO’s roughly 143,000 current affiliate membership.
Local 503 will phase in its dues over three years, eventually reaching an annual payment of $621,000. The federation’s annual budget has been around $2 million in recent years, so Local 503’s contributions amount to a significant budget increase.
Leaders of the two organizations announced the re-affiliation publicly in a Nov. 13 Zoom press conference.
“Oregon is a union strong state, and the re-affiliation of SEIU 503 will help to ensure that we remain that way and that we continue to grow our union membership and defend the progress that we have made on behalf of all working people,” said Oregon AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Sarina Roher.
Local 503 executive director Melissa Unger said the groups had already been working together even though they weren’t formally affiliated, but re-affiliating means that Local 503 will have a voice in shaping the federation’s priorities. Two Local 503 delegates will join the Oregon AFL-CIO executive board.
“Our members understand the threats we all face as workers and that by re-affiliating we will strengthen Oregon labor against attacks on workers’ rights, attempts to roll back safety protections, and efforts to weaken labor unions as a whole,” said Mike Powers, who was Local 503 president when the vote to re-affiliate took place.
As a 503 Board member, I voted against this because it siphons dues away from 503 which could be used to directly benefit 503 members. To me, this is all show and no go. Furthermore, it would not surprise me if a 503 leader or staff person goes to work for the AFL-CIO in the near future. The entire 503 membership should have had a vote in this matter rather than less than 200 General Council members.
It’s good to learn that SEIU Local 503 has rejoined the Oregon AFL-CIO after leaving it almost two decades ago.
IN UNITY WE WIN !!
In solidarity