organizer

director

law clerk

field organizer

communications coordinator

Service Employees International Union

The hardest part of this job is balance between your work and personal life. Travel is extensive, and often it is demanded of you with little notice. A typical day at work finds one trying to figure out which fire to put out first in assignments that can encompass 2,000 to 3,000 members scattered over wide geographic locations at work sites from only 5-6 employees, to several hundred. The best planned calendars are often wiped clean at the demand of management to drop everything and move focus to organizing or political action work. It is not uncommon to work 60-80 hours/week for 40 hours of pay on status as a salaried employee. Phone calls and emails never stop as workers call to request/demand your attention to some burning issue that has developed at the work site. What I learned is that while I believe in the labor movement's philosophy of workers having a voice at the table this voice is very often overlooked in today's era of budget cuts, and doing more with less should often now be interpreted to be doing it all with nothing. This makes bargaining good contracts extremely difficult. However, the most enjoyable part of the job is when you help someone to get their voice heard and make a difference in an outcome that might not have occurred without it. Management for SEIU is driven by politics at both the federal and state levels. The ability to generate new PAC funds from the membership is a priority on performance evaluations. Also, administrative duties are often down-played in importance second to political action work. This enrages many members who pay dues as a part of their job requirements and organizers regularly face obstacles in meeting their PAC requirements due to this resistance on the part of the membership.

Those senior organizers who make upwards of 85-100k seem less concerned with getting real organizing info from those organizers who are still in the field on the front lines doing the contact work.
Whatever information about the difficulties we face seems to go unheard or just plain ignored. Results could be better if they actually cared about the workers they organize or equally as important their own "team" of organizers. Clearly an organizer making 100grand a year cares less about you than they do their salary and at the end of the day that becomes painfully clear. I guess once you reach that level of salary nothing really matters anyway.
They may be more experienced but they clearly lack interpersonal or any sort of skill in how to deal with organizers who they feel may pose a threat or rock the boat. I was targeted by one of their senior organizers for disagreeing with him and leaving work after a more than 12 hour day before a pointless debrief with another organizer who was late for said debrief and who had full knowledge that I was leaving. I was lied to and on by the same organizer (K.F.) who told someone that we debrief every hour on the hour when in fact he didnt even know who I was. (I still have the texts to prove it too) Fat greasy lying p.o.s!!!!
Don't ask too many questions or have a mind of your own,keep your head down and tow the company line EVEN IF they (SEIU) isn't the company you ACTUALLY WORK FOR...(hello NYCC) they can still cut you off at the knees and take away your only source of income...which is odd when you consider they are supposed to be pro worker. Unless you work as an organizer I guess.

Overall I did enjoy working at the union. It's definitely a difficult job constantly being on the phone with upset members and it can be very isolating without connection to your coworkers. There's slow room for growth. The benefits are great, but their attendance policies ensure that it's extremely difficult to use the benefits provided. I would definitely not recommend working in the MRC if you have any sort of disability, chronic illness, or mental health concerns. You will not be supported in your need for time off and there is little to no flexibility in attendance. It is clear that they value a warm body on the phone over job performance. Most of the co-workers in the MRC are incredible and want to be there and support one another and always willing to answer questions. However company policies are often vague and you are not given the resources necessary to find answers for standards of practice within the organization unless you do the leg work and reach out to multiple different people to find answers. Working in the member resource center information is constantly changing and so you have to be able to keep up and remember all of the changes, sometimes these are not clearly communicated until after the fact. 

I was hired at SEIU to do research finding adjunct professors working for private universities.  This consisted of pulling data from College websites as well as linked information and transferring it to a excel spreadsheet.  Once this was done, the information needed to be sorted and categorized.  Once one college was completed, I would start on the next.

I learned many useful tools in Microsoft excel when dealing with data analysis and regressions.  I also learned how to use a web crawler program, that can pull large amounts of data through a website that does not offer it all in one place and have it transferred onto an excel spreadsheet.

My co workers were all very nice and professional.  This company is specifically to unionize other companies, so being respectful to one another as well as understanding benefits was a high priority.  If you ever needed any help any one there was always willing

The hardest part of this job was the hours on end staring at a screen regressing numbers and being able to stay focused.  It was difficult to properly pace myself and stay focused for that long.  However by doing this, it helped my attention to detail and motivation skills in order to complete tasks in a timely manor.

SEIU is a international organization therefore each local is different rather there are more than one SEIU  local in the same state. I worked 7.5 yrs  SEIU-HCII in Chicago IL. Once downtown but relocated to China town . It was a wonderful place to work initially. The benefits & pay are great, there is no doubt there. However the atmosphere & culture are very unhealthy. Leadership has changed & the priorities of members and staff have been all but forgotten. There are staff unions because Management are the same everywhere. Employees are ostracized, targeted & fired for speaking out against 
layoffs & staffing minimums, especially during elections or COPE Blitz . Institutional racism remains a cultural phenomenon.  Members are not being represented & the ongoing CBA's are not being enforced.  I warn anyone thinking of working with member outreach as a Organizer or CBR rep.

My time at SEIU Local 1000 was a very exhausting period in my life. SEIU Local 1000 has an abundance of resources at its disposal however the majority of my position was to challenge the authority of office managers in the institutions where our Union members were employed.

I understand the necessity and benefits and protections a Union provides however I personally felt what I was being asked to do was not only disruptive to the day to day operations of a business but downright unwarranted and unwanted by the union membership itself.

My opinion was not appreciated by Union leadership. In addition there was a very poor work and personal life balance. I've been an exempt employee nearly my entire life however the expectations of SEIU Local 1000 exceeded anything I've experienced in my work history.

Many work here believing in the mission. SEIU does not treat its employees like the other workers it defends. We have strong benefits relative to other workers because we used to have a strong staff union. SEIU busted that staff union and has weakened our benefits over the years. You will come away demoralized and shell-shocked IF you are not one of their favorites. Yes, favoritism is rampant.  So much of members’ money is wasted on outsourcing and internal navel-gazing that whitewashes how truly deplorably SEIU treats its own workers. While it should be ashamed it has no self-awareness whatsoever. Management is terribly insular although pretends to take into account opinions of others. If you want to just put your head down and not care about the contradictions and hypocrisy you’re swimming in, then it’s a decent job. If you truly care about workers and unions and aren’t willing to sellout or be quiet if you have constructive criticism, you won’t thrive there.

SEIU is an incredible organization with killer benefits, high pay, tons of growth opportunities, and international travel. It's every activist's dream gig. However almost every position there requires you to serve as an organizer before you get into any higher roles. 
The organizer position is intense. Turnover is around 85% within the first two years (by then organizers either promote within the Organizing Department, start their climb in other SEIU departments, or quit). Hours of an organizer are somewhere between 50 and 80 per week. Pay starts very low but if you can make it past the first year, it nearly doubles. I nearly tripling my salary in my eight years with SEIU. 

This organization is divided into two sections:
Organizing and everything else; understand the role you are applying for. Positive attitudes and team players excel here.

Training was 2 weeks and they barely show you anything since the call volume is so high, you will be on the phone all day literally!  I mean that, the senior employees take long breaks, show up late and feel untouchable(good for them I guess) 

As a contractor I Only got paid 35 hours and not 40 as promised and holidays were not paid. Overall it was a very miserable experience. I asked several times if I could get some situational training and was told I would be never really got the chance, you are expected to know their system in 2 weeks.

Overall if you don’t mind being on the phone all day, working in a toxic environment, while getting bad training and you just happen to pick it up, good luck this place is probably only worth it for the benefits, if they actually had like 4-5 people on the phones it would actually maybe be a enjoyable place to work.


Its president and four vice presidents are elected by its members. These elected officers appoint a chief of staff who oversee H&R that hires staff. The union
also has an executive board that meets every quarter and has fiduciary duties to oversight its budget and elected officials. The biggest hurdle was watching the lack of diversity and the culture where loyalty to the chief of staff was rewarded with advancement instead of competence and work ethics. The most rewarding and enjoyable part of the job is working with your dues-paying members and how relatable in every sense of the word that their stories are yours. What I learned is power can corrupt people and if its no true check and balance then people would do anything to hold on to that power and control the people.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Organizer 61 salaries reported	$68,943 per year
Director 6 salaries reported	$121,723 per year
Law clerk 1 salary reported	$25.00 per hour
Field organizer 7 salaries reported	$69,509 per year
Communications coordinator 6 salaries reported	$108,343 per year

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