Unions for All Summit

 
– SEIU video: Day 1, Day 2 – 
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Friday, October 4 and Saturday, October 5, 2019 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

8 CANDIDATES: Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, Sanders* and Warren.

Background: SEIU brought together members from around the country for this event, the latest of its efforts to engage the presidential candidates.  SEIU helped organize several earlier candidate forums (We the People Membership Summit in Washington, DC on Apr. 1 and National Forum on Wages and Working People in Las Vegas on Apr. 27); has led in the Fight for 15 effort; and has also "invited presidential candidates to walk a day in the shoes of SEIU members and not-yet-union workers."

Each candidate had 30 minutes.  Following a brief introduction by an SEIU member, the candidate made introductory remarks, responded to two questions from SEIU members seated on stage, answered one question from an SEIU member spotlighted in the audience, and made brief closing remarks.

In a key Aug. 21, 2019 speech (+) SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry set out a Unions for All vision, making it clear that SEIU's endorsement* will be contingent on support for four points:
  •  One, bringing corporations and government together at industry-wide bargaining tables with workers to negotiate better wages, benefits, and working conditions,
  • Two, allowing states to innovate and go above and beyond federal labor laws,
  • Three, ensuring that every public dollar is used to create good, union jobs and that every federal worker and contractor makes at least $15/hour and has the opportunity to join a union, and
  • And four, putting good union jobs for all workers at the center of any major effort to fix our economy.
"If candidates can’t commit to these four things, they can’t count on our support," Henry stated.

* At a media avail. during the summit, Mary Kay Henry noted that the executive board had met "to do a gut check" on the question of an endorsement; during the meeting there was "a lot of discussion" on the best timing to make an endorsement so as to inject the demand for structural change for unions in the campaign.
   

Friday 10/4
1pm - Former Vice President Joe Biden
1:30pm - Senator Kamala Harris
2pm - Senator Elizabeth Warren
2:30pm - Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro
3pm - Senator Cory Booker

Saturday 10/5
10am - Former Representative Beto O'Rourke
10:30am - Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
Noon - South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg

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1,000 SEIU, Fight for $15 and a Union members to host presidential candidates at Unions for All Summit

Voters from across the country to question candidates October 4 and 5

WASHINGTON, DC - The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced today that 1,000 of their members and Fight for $15 and a Union members will ask pressing questions of the leading presidential candidates at the Unions for All Summit next month. Attendees, who will travel to Los Angeles from across the country, will ask candidates about their plans around the economy, wages and how they would make it easier for all working people to join together in unions.

Attendees will represent the breadth of SEIU’s membership, which includes working people in healthcare, property services (such as janitors, security officers and airport workers), the public sector, higher education and child care. They will be joined by working people who have been prevented from forming their union, such as fast-food and gig workers.

On August 21, SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry delivered a speech outlining SEIU’s “Unions for All” demand, calling for a comprehensive overhaul of America’s 80-year-old labor laws.

Candidates invited to the Unions for All Summit are expected to present their plans to empower millions more working people to organize and join unions, moving the balance of power away from corporations and back towards working men and women.

WHO:
1,000 SEIU members and not-yet-union members
SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry
Former Vice President Joe Biden
Sen. Cory Booker
South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro
Sen. Kamala Harris
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Elizabeth Warren

WHAT:
Unions for All Summit

WHERE:
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles
404 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90071

WHEN:
Afternoon of October 4 and morning of October 5, 2019 
Time slots TBA