On March 19, the leaders of SEIU Local 1000 awoke to find their ranks noticeably depleted.
In a single day, the union — which represents California state employees in departments ranging from the state Acupuncture Board to the Department of Workers Compensation — lost 130 members.
Even an organization that represents 96,000 employees, at that rate of attrition the union would be completely depleted inside of two years. Freedom Foundation has helped over 10,000 SEIU 1000 members leave their union since 2018 and we have good reason to believe they are currently sitting at about 46,0000 members, a 48% membership rate.
More to the point, with each member paying around $1,000 a year in dues, the defections blew a $130,000 hole in SEIU 1000’s annual budget in just one day. And the number will increase exponentially as more members opt out every single day of the year.
And it’s happening specifically because of the Freedom Foundation’s direct mail and email campaigns.
But we can’t take all the credit. SEIU 1000’s long history of incompetent, indifferent, scandal-plagued representation in playing a huge role in the union’s downfall. And that isn’t just speculation. The Golden State’s largest public employee union has already seen its dues-paying membership shrink to about half of those in the bargaining unit.
And there are reasons to believe it’s even less than that.
Like public-employee unions all over the country, SEIU 1000 diverts a huge percentage of its revenues to the national headquarters in Washington, D.C., to fund leftist candidates and causes that have nothing whatever to do with the workplace concerns of its rank and file.
Former president Richard Louis Brown was elected two years ago promising to root partisan politics out of the union and focus on what matters most — salary and working conditions.
Instead, the SEIU board successfully rooted him from office.
SEIU is going to face an existential threat if it continues to trend in the way it has. Ideally, the union will be replaced by a more efficient, more honest union as is happening in other corners of the country.
But, as is true of all cures, first the patient must realize how sick he or she is.
