Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare, including hospital, home care and nursing home workers; public services ; and property services.
Leon Julian Davis was a Polish-born American labor leader who co-founded the Local 1199 of the Drug, Hospital and Health Care Employees Union as 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East.
Andrew L. Stern is the former president of the Service Employees International Union, and now serves as its President Emeritus.
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Founded in 1937, the RWDSU represents about 60,000 workers in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to retail, grocery stores, poultry processing, dairy processing, cereal processing, soda bottlers, bakeries, health care, hotels, manufacturing, public sector workers like crossing guards, sanitation, and highway workers, warehouses, building services, and distribution.
Victor Samuel Kamber is an American labor union activist and political consultant in the United States. A Democrat, he worked for the AFL-CIO in the 1970s before forming The Kamber Group, a public relations firm, in 1980.
Alan Bennett Krueger was an American economist who was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy at Princeton University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, nominated by President Barack Obama, from May 2009 to October 2010, when he returned to Princeton. He was nominated in 2011 by Obama as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and served in that office from November 2011 to August 2013.
1199: The National Health Care Workers' Union was an American labor union founded as the Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union-District 1199 by Leon J. Davis for pharmacists in New York City in 1932. The union organized all workers in drug stores on an industrial basis, including pharmacists, clerks, and soda jerks. The union led pioneering pickets and strikes against racial segregation and racially discriminatory hiring in Harlem and elsewhere in New York City during the 1930s.
Socialist Alternative is a Trotskyist political party in the United States. It describes itself as a Marxist organization, and a revolutionary party fighting for a democratic socialist economy. Unlike reformist progressive groups, it argues that capitalism is fundamentally incapable of serving the interests of the majority of people.
Leon Fink is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A historian, his research and writing focuses on labor unions in the United States, immigration and the nature of work He is the founding editor of Labor: Studies in Working-Class History, the premier journal of labor history in the United States.
In the United States, the minimum wage is set by U.S. labor law and a range of state and local laws. The first federal minimum wage was instituted in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but later found to be unconstitutional. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established it at 25¢ an hour. Its purchasing power peaked in 1968, at $1.60 In 2009, it was increased to $7.25 per hour, and has not been increased since.
The New York State Department of Labor is the department of the New York state government that enforces labor law and administers unemployment benefits.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 29 U.S.C. § 203 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppressive child labor". It applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. The Act was enacted by the 75th Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.
Patrick Hubert Gaspard is an American former diplomat who serves as president of Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank.
George Hardy was a Canadian-American labor leader who was president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from 1971 to 1980. At the time of his death, SEIU had grown to become the fifth-largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Hardy was a vice president of the AFL-CIO from 1972 to 1980, and a member of its executive council. He was a former member of the Democratic National Committee and the California Democratic State Central Committee.
The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration, or in its colloquial portmanteau form "Obamanomics", was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans designed to fund health care reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. President Obama's first term (2009–2013) included measures designed to address the Great Recession and subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term (2013–2017), the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester (cap) was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. The number of persons without health insurance was reduced by 20 million, reaching a record low level as a percent of the population. By the end of his second term, the number of persons with jobs, real median household income, stock market, and real household net worth were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below historical average.
The SEIU Healthcare 1199NW strike of 2014 was a 24-hour strike called by the Service Employees Union healthcare Local 1199NW. The strike was begun on Tuesday, November 18, 2014, at 7:00 A.M. There were 1,100 workers at two Pierce County hospitals operated by CHI Franciscan Health in Tacoma who participated in the strike event. The two hospitals are St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood. Nurse assistants, licensed practical nurses, unit secretaries, dietary workers, housekeepers, sterile processors, technical workers and other services of the two hospitals walked off the job to participate in the strike. The strike did not include nurses and doctors. The union members were demanding CHI Franciscan Health to improve wages, improve on health care, improve on their charity care policy, and end unfair labor practices.
The 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held November 6, 2018 to elect a U.S. Representative from each of New York's 27 congressional districts. The elections coincided with the gubernatorial election, as well as an election to the United States Senate and various state and local elections.
Dennis Rivera is an American consultant and former labor official and a "nationally recognized health care leader" who has been speaking about the issues in the United States healthcare system since 1992.
The 2022 elections for the Florida State Senate took place on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, to elect state senators from all 40 districts. Although on ordinary years, 20 senators are elected at a time on a staggered basis, races following redistricting elect all 40 members to ensure that each member represents an equal number of constituents. The Republican Party expanded their Senate majority from 24 to 28, gaining a supermajority in the Senate. The concurrently held House elections also resulted in a supermajority, giving Republicans supermajority control of the legislature.
