Stronger Together

Stronger Together: The Story of SEIU describes how the Service Employees International Union grew to 2.2 million members in an era when most unions suffered major declines.

SEIU, founded by a small group of Chicago janitors in 1921, is a bargaining and political powerhouse today and has won big economic gains for janitors, healthcare workers, and public employees—many of whom are women, immigrants, and people of color. The book details the huge role SEIU played in helping to elect Barack Obama as President in 2008 and in passing healthcare reform legislation in early 2010.

Andy Stern, SEIU president from 1996 to 2010, is a major focus of the book. As Business Week noted upon Stern’s retirement: “It will be a long time before the labor movement produces another leader quite as far-seeing as Andrew L. Stern…or one quite so controversial.”

Stronger Together details how Stern and SEIU tried to force the American labor movement to restructure and energize itself to deal with the new global economy with its declining manufacturing sector lowering the percentage of workers belonging to unions. SEIU’s split with the AFL-CIO focused new attention on the need for more innovative approaches by labor. An inspiring account of a union that changed the face of the labor movement.

About the Author

Don Stillman

Don Stillman is president of Labor Rights Now, a human rights group that campaigns to win released of jailed worker activists in China, Burma, Zimbabwe and other countries. He served as director of governmental and international affairs for the United Auto Workers for more than 20 years. Stillman taught at Oxford University, where he was a visiting fellow at Magdalen College. He's written for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Life magazine, The Progressive, and other publications. Stillman's work as Editor of the United Mine Workers Journal won it a National Magazine Award and he later was founding editor of ...

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