Service Employees International Union

Said to be the fastest-growing trade union in North America, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) focuses on three sectors of a service economy; it is the largest union in the first two:

• Health care: with more than 1.1 million members in the field, including nurses, LPNs, doctors, lab technicians, nursing home workers, and home care workers
• Property services: with 225,000 members in the building cleaning and security industries
• Public services, with more than 1 million local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers

Its president, Andy Stern, announced his retirement in April 2010.

Barack Obama

In 2009, Stern was the most frequent White House visitor to President Barack Obama. The union endorsed him, as a candidate, in February 2008.

Health care

Not surprisingly as the largest union in the sector, SEIU has been active in health care reform. It participated in the March 2009 White House Forum on Health Reform.

Michelle Malkin criticized SEIU as introducing race-based funding of health care.

In balloting by about 2,000 nurses and other professionals, employees of California Kaiser Permanente voted, by a 6-1 margin, to affiliate with the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Critics

Conservative critics have been emphatic that SEIU has great influence on President Obama. On Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, Mike Flynn claimed, of violence in St. Louis, Missouri, "Evidence is emerging that the events of that day went far beyond St. Louis and may have been part of a nationally orchestrated campaign to intimidate and silence dissent.

There are relationships between SEIU and ACORN, although ACORN has discontinued national operations.