Talk:SEIU Healthcare

Deletion request
There's no need to delete this article. It relates to SEIU and its locals. I'm worried about the writing as well, as it does read like it comes from somewhere, so I'm looking into copyvio. In the meantime, I'm going to add some standard WP:UNION stuff around the text.--Bookandcoffee 18:46, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Sourcing
There are some pretty strong charges in this article that aren't backed by any sources, and some writing that seems like WP:OR. I'm going to cut a number of them out in the next few days unless they can be ed.--Bookandcoffee 16:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Started.--Bookandcoffee 19:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well that's my run at it. I took a large amount of material out. It was clearly personal opinions, original research, and frankly, an angry rant against the union. I'm all for including unflattering material if it's true and sourced, but I saw none of that here.--Bookandcoffee 16:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The material that I removed continues to be re-inserted into this article. It contains a considerable amount of polarized language, original research, and unsourced material. Simply re-adding the content is not enough - if it is to be used it must be improved a great deal and, most importantly, accompanied by sources.--Bookandcoffee 17:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for a Revised Article
It looks like Wikipedia’s editors have decided to keep the article. I respect the editors’ decision but I would like to re-write the article in a much more neutral manner with the same kind of tone and language that is similar to other Canadian union wiki articles. You will also notice my article contains references/footnotes.

Below this article I have provided explanations why I removed certain parts of the original piece.

SEIU Local 1 Canada
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 Canada represents more than 46,000 health care and community services workers in Ontario. Its members work in hospitals, home care, nursing & retirement homes and community services throughout the province.

SEIU has been active in Ontario for more than 60 years. SEIU Local 1 Canada was created in 2004 when six SEIU locals merged into one large local to provide a higher level of service to its members.

SEIU Local 1 Canada prides itself as an organizing union. Its goal is to organize every worker employed in the health care and community services field. Since its inception in 2004, SEIU Local 1 Canada has grown by over 9,000 members, a 25 percent increase.

The President of SEIU Local 1 Canada is Sharleen Stewart. She was elected for a four-year term at its provincial convention in Windsor, Ontario in 2007.

SEIU Local 1 Canada is one of five locals who are affiliated with SEIU Canada, a national union representing over 100,000 workers. SEIU is an international union that represents more than 2.2 million workers throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

History
Originally known as the Building Service Employees International Union, the union established its first two locals in Montreal and Vancouver in 1943. Members at these two locals were mainly elevator operators, window cleaners, janitors and other maintenance employees in commercial buildings.

SEIU started organizing health care workers in Ontario hospitals in the early 1940s. Many other unions tried to organize this sector, but with little success. SEIU persisted and formed Canada’s first hospital local at the Toronto General Hospital in 1944. SEIU also organized four hospitals in eight months in Thunder Bay in 1946.

SEIU continued to expand in hospitals and nursing homes. In the early 1980s SEIU helped protect nursing home jobs from outsourcing, won a pension plan for thousands of nursing home workers worth over $304-million in assets, and stopped the Ontario Government from passing a law that would restrict yearly wage increases.

In the mid-1990s SEIU took the Ontario Government to court after the Progressive Conservatives tried to limit Ontario’s pay equity legislation. This legal action pressured the government in June 2003 to commit up to $414 million in pay equity funding for 100,000 women across Ontario.

Reasserting Canadian Identity
In 1998 SEIU’s national executive and local presidents across Canada created a working group to examine ways to strengthen SEIU’s structure in Canada. Dubbed the “November Group”, this body put forward a proposal that would give SEIU Canada and its local’s greater autonomy in its decision-making, financial structures and the establishment of their strategic goals.

CAW Raids SEIU
Some of SEIU’s leaders did not agree with the November Group’s proposals. They responded by resigning and supporting the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) raid on SEIU work units in Ontario in 2000.

Many unions condemned the CAW for their actions. The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) applied full sanctions against the CAW in July 2000 for violating the CLC’s no-raiding agreement. Many prominent unions in Canada including the Steelworkers, CUPE, OPSEU, CEP, UFCW supported SEIU in their efforts to fight back the CAW raid.

After the dust had settled, nearly 80% of SEIU members rejected the CAW’s raid attempt and chose to stay with SEIU.

SEIU Rebuilds
After the CAW raids, SEIU’s Ontario locals worked together to strengthen SEIU in Canada. In October 2003, the locals voted to merge its health care and community service members into one provincial local named SEIU Local 1.on. SEIU’s members approved this decision by a 90% majority.

SEIU International issued a charter for SEIU Local 1.on on January 8, 2004 and approved the new local’s constitution on March 26, 2004.

SEIU Local 1.on’s key objective was to organize non-union workers. Over a 5 year period, the Local increased its membership by 9,000 workers, a 25% increase.

SEIU Local 1 Canada Today
After President Sharleen Stewart was elected to another four year term at SEIU Local 1’s members’ convention in Windsor in 2007, the Local began to invest a considerable amount of energy into new methods of servicing.

In 2009 SEIU Local 1 Canada unveiled the Member Resource Centre (MRC), a help centre that provides quick answers to members.

In 2010 The Local restructured its operations to provide an even higher level of service to its members based on industry expertise.

My Comments
I removed significant portions of the original article. Many parts were incorrect. Here’s why.

If you review the Local 1 Canada Servicing section, nothing here is true. Where is the evidence supporting the author’s controversial charges? Where is the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) documents supporting the accusation that an average of 13 charges a year were laid against SEIU? If these charges were true, which it isn’t, how does it compare to other unions in the health care field? If the same number of charges were laid against other unions, SEIU cannot be accused of poor servicing. There is no documentation proving this accusation from a respectable source.

Most of the information on the Strike of 2007 is incorrect. The field staff at SEIU went on strike for a variety of reasons. Can the editor provide Wikipedia with documentation proving that the use of scab labour and job relocation is the primary reason why staff went on strike? Is there any evidence supporting the charge that management “capitulated” to the striker’s demands? The facts are that staff and management worked out an agreement and a new staff contract was ratified. But there is no evidence to support any of the charges they are making.

Another reason why I believe the strike should be moved because it’s a small incident that doesn’t deserve to be covered in Wikipedia. Yes the strike did occur, it was not a key turning point or critical event in SEIU’s history. Strikes happen all the time to other unions. The Canadian Auto Workers staff went on strike twice over the past 10 years but it’s not in their Wikipedia page. It’s almost the same level as “Company XYZ lays off two staff members”. These are not good things but they have a negligible impact on who the organization really is and what it stands for.

In conclusion, the article I provided is accurate and much better written and balanced. It provides a much more accurate and balanced view of who SEIU is and their history. Please contact me if you have any questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.11.91.137 (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

About Referencing
When I came across this article, its referencing was abysmal - it had a lot of citations, but nearly all were bare URLs. If you edit this article and add citations, please read WP:BAREURLS and WP:CITEWEB, and use the Cite templates available at the top of the editing section. Use titles, dates, and something to indicate where the information came from - publications, author names, etc. I have started improving and merging citations in the article, and there's a lot to clean up.  PK T (alk)  14:34, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Removing instances of generic business union critiques.
I am probably even sympathetic to business unionism critiques by Kim Moody, but unless they're specific to SEIU Healthcare Canada, they shouldn't be included. Nor should primary sources, including SEIU's home page be used to draw WP:Original research. The notable aspects of this topic in general is that SEIU Healthcare is the largest health union, the SEIU/CAW raid and the aftermath of that. Other general critiques of SEIU would appropriate make sense for the SEIU article itself. Thoughts? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 00:29, 6 January 2022 (UTC)