The Service Employees International Union, which built itself into the nation's largest union by aggressively organizing janitors and home-care workers, plans to take on three fast-growing outsourcing companies in its biggest campaign ever.
Speaking at his union's quadrennial convention in San Francisco on Monday, SEIU President Andrew Stern said the companies -- France's Sodexho Inc., Britain's Compass Group and Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp. -- are growing at the expense of union workers, whose jobs are being contracted out.
"Today, these three companies employ 1.1 million workers and are growing so fast in cleaning, food service, laundry, transportation, maintenance and anything else that can be contracted out in schools, universities, government, office buildings, hospitals and nursing homes that in a few years they will overtake Wal-Mart in size," Stern told a cheering crowd of nearly 4,000 members. "These three global service companies -- they are our Wal-Mart."
Nonunion Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest company, often is cited by union leaders as a force to lower wages and benefits in the retail sector.
The organizing effort is being undertaken jointly with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, which represents garment and laundry workers, and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union. It will be a high-profile test of plans by the three unions to work more closely on large strategic campaigns.
It also promises to be difficult, given the size, global reach and widely dispersed workforces of the targeted companies. But the SEIU has used creative approaches to organize difficult-to-reach employees, including janitors who clean office buildings at night through contractors.
In Los Angeles, by holding marches, candlelight vigils and other highly visible events, the union eventually forced building owners to intervene. They in turn persuaded the contractors to accept the union.
The three outsourcing companies named by Stern have some union workers, although the majority are nonunion. According to union researchers, Aramark is 22% union in North America, Compass is about 12% and Sodexho is 8%.
The three companies combined have 330,000 nonunion workers in the U.S. and Canada, according to an SEIU organizer. They run company cafeterias, make lunches for schoolchildren and hospital patients, serve up hot dogs at sporting events and wash linens for hotels. All three have operations in Southern California. Aramark, for example, operates concessions at Dodger Stadium.
