"MEET THE SSEU
This is our union - The Social Service Employees Union, more familiarly known as the SSEU.
Elevator operators, case workers, group workers, clerks, fund-raisers, janitors, research workers, maids, and others - we are all members of SSEU because we have a common aim in life.
We are a division of the United Office & Professional Workers of America. And we have decided that working together in the union is the best way to win job security, higher pay, better working and living conditions, and improved standards of social service to the community.
OUR GOALS
These are our goals:
-To advance and protect the economic interests of the
employees of private social and non-profit agencies.
- To further the interests of organized labor.
- To promote an adequate welfare program, and to
advance standards of service.
IT'S A RANK AND FILE UNION
SSEU is a rank-and-file union, run by the membership.
The union starts in an agency or office, where worker-members get together and form a unit called a chapter. Each chapter handles its own special problems in the agency, under the general guidance of the local's Executive Board and staff.
The members of all the chapters in all the organized and unorganized agencies hold frequent General Membership Meetings, to decide all the basic policies of the union.
The membership goes to the polls annually, to elect a local union Executive Board by secret ballot. Full-time officials are also approved by the membership.
Each local elects delegates to the National Convention of the UOPWA, and tells them how to vote. The convention, in turn, elects national officials of the UOPWA, and a General Executive Board.
THE S-S-S PROGRAM OF SSEU
The Seventh Constitutional Convention of the UOPWA, held in New York March 1-5, 1948, launched a great new program of SALARIES-SECURITY-SERVICE. The program calls for:
SALARIES: A $40 basic minimum wage in all social agencies. No worker to get less. A $50 minimum for qualified office workers. A $65 per week basic minimum for fully qualified professional workers.
SECURITY: Inclusion of nonprofit workers under the Social Security Act; coverage under Un-employment Compensation laws; strong severance pay provisions; and other forms of group and health insurance.
SERVICE: Resistance to all attacks on public services, and to retrenchment and restrictive policies in private agencies.
WHERE WE WORK
Our members work in family welfare and children's agencies, settlement houses, clinics, institutions, fund-raising, and every other type of health and welfare agency.
These organizations come under jurisdiction of the SSEU because the agencies structure and the employees problems are similar. The agencies are nonprofit; they operate under boards of directors, composed of prominent citizens; and above all, they have a common concern with the social problems of the people.
INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM
Like most of the other unions in the CIO, the UOPWA-SSEU is an Industrial Union. It organizes all the employees of an organization - clerical, building maintenance, technical and professional - into ONE union. It is therefore stronger and better able to protect the interests of all employees than a Craft Union, which organizes different categories of workers into separate unions.
LOCAL - NATIONAL - INTERNATIONAL
Each SSEU is a local union, a part of the United Office & Professional Workers of America.
There are almost 200 local unionism the international UOPWA.
In the ranks of the UOPWA are more than 70,000 office, maintenance, professional and technical employees of "white collar" outfits - book and magazine firms, insurance companies and film offices, banks and industrial plants, architectural and engineering firms and, of course, social service and nonprofit agencies.
Regional Councils: Members of the SSEU locals elect delegates to the UOPWA Regional Councils, which establish policy for the locals in each Region, coordinate activities, and act as planning centers for organization, new activities etc. The UOPWA at the present time has eleven Regions.
CIO: The UOPWA is part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations - the "CIO." And the UOPWA General Executive Board sends delegates to the annual CIO Conventions.
The CIO is a federation of 41 national and international unions, with over 6,000,000 members, most of them in the United States and Canada. It includes unions in basic industry - such as the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers - as well as other white collar and professional unions, like the American Newspaper Guild.
WTFU: Uniting the workers in the country with the working people all over the world is the World Federation of Trade Unions - WFTU. The CIO is a member of this great international group, which represents 67,000,000 people in 66 countries.
MEMBERSHIP ACTIVITY
In a union, as in any other organization, real democracy is not guaranteed by democratic machinery, elections, or representation alone. In the SSEU hundreds of members are active on committees and projects - helping day by day to build the union, to improve and enrich its program, and to increase its benefits for all.
Among the major SSEU activities are: organizing, collective bargaining, professional problems, and political and legislative activity.
WE PAY DUES
These activities cost money - for preparing leaflets; for salary research; drawing up contracts; keeping union representatives on the job; sponsoring forums; participating in conventions and conferences; paying rent, electricity and telephone bills; issuing dues books; hiring office staff; mimeographing notices, and doing the countless other things that keep a union moving forward.
The money to do these things comes from monthly dues, initiation fees and assessments.
Initiation Fees are $2, paid once.
Dues, set by membership vote, range from $1.50 to $3.50 a month, depending on the size of the our paychecks. Unemployed members and students pay 25 cents a month.
Assessments: There may at times be assessments. The Constitution of the National Union limits assessments to no more than $2 in any one year except by referendum of the membership, or by the national Convention.
Out of our dues payment, 65 cents a month goes to the International UOPWA (which pays 5 cents of it to the National CIO), 45 cents goes to the Regional UOPWA Council; other smaller amounts go to the state and city CIO councils.
The books of the union, always open for inspection by any member, are regularly checked by an elected auditing committee or certified public accountant, and financial statements are provided periodically.
WE FIGHT FOR BETTER PAY
The SSEU believes and fights for better pay for all employees in the social service field.
Better pay means two things. It means pay checks large enough to allow us to eat and dress and live decently and healthfully; and it means pay checks sufficiently adequate to hire and keep the best qualified workers on the job for the most efficient functioning of the agencies.
SSEU's membership has increased 62 percent in the last two years, and as more and more of us have joined the union we have made real salary gains.
Since 1946, the SSEU has won $5,000,000 in pay increases for its members throughout the united States and Canada.
AND BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS
Many agencies have good working conditions, but others are not up to par. In all agencies, the SSEU seeks:
Shorter Hours: The 5-day, 35-hour work week.
Better Vacations: 1 month summer; 1 week winter; for all employees.
Paid Sick Leave: 30 days per year, cumulative to 90.
Overtime Pay: Time and one-half for overtime; premium pay for Sunday and Holidays.
Severance Pay: One month for each year of service in case of retrenchment or reorganization.
Through negotiations and grievance machinery, the SSEU fights continuously to improve the conditions under which we work, to protect our health, and provide a maximum of security and protection on the job.
WE SEEK IMPROVED SERVICES
The well-being of the community is a vital concern of social service employees, for as union members and as workers, we are close to the needs of the people we serve.
For this very reason, we often see the roles our agencies must play as far more clearly than the conservative business groups which control most of them.
Today, restrictions in public services have have thrown a great burden on private agencies. And the danger is very real that those agencies which have developed highly skilled and important services will find their programs threatened.
The SSEU has always played an active part in the development of the social work profession. With all the strength at its command, it is working toward the following goals to improve standards of service:
1. A complete federal program of public assistance, social security and medical care.
2. Genuine community control of agency boards and program.
3. Democratic staff participation in policymaking.
POLITICS IS BREAD AND BUTTER
SSEU members take an active part in the political life of our country... because a good salary scale means nothing with food and clothing prices skyrocketing.... because higher pay and better working conditions for social service employees will mean nothing in a national depression with widespread unemployment... because security on our jobs will mean nothing if there is a third world holocaust.
WE BARGAIN
The union seeks to reach it's goals of job security, higher pay, and better working conditions through collective bargaining.
After a group of workers in an agency have joined the union, it works out its contract demands, The Chapter then asks the agency for recognition and to negotiate an agreement. The Chapter elects a Negotiating Committee from its members, who are aided by a full-time union representative. The Union Committee meets with a committee appointed by the agency management.
Negotiations are carried on between management and the Union Committee until an agreement is reached which is acceptable to both sides. Sometimes the going is smooth; sometimes it's very tough and the union has to fight every inch of the way.
When an agreement is reached and approved by the Chapter, by the local's Executive Board, and by the agency's Board of Directors, it is written into a Contract.
WE TAKE UP COMPLAINTS
The contract always includes some kind of Grievance Procedure.
If a worker has a complaint, he takes it to the Union Grievance Committee elected by the Chapter. This Committee takes up the complaint with the agency management and, if necessary, to the Board. If agreement cannot be reached through these talks, the difference is submitted to an impartial outside person known as an Arbitrator, who makes the final decision.
ARBITARION - STOPPAGES - STRIKES
Sometimes collective bargaining does not work. Management refuses to recognize the union or bargain collectively. Management may refuse to grant badly needed pay increases after months of negotiations.
When collective bargaining fails, the union may ask an agency to submit the dispute to impartial arbitration. If an employer refuses, we may take more drastic action, such as publicizing the fight in newspaper advertisements and leaflets; or organizing protest pickets lines and other demonstrations.
If all of these actions fail, we may resort to labor's traditional weapon - a WORK STOPPAGE or a STRIKE.
No union takes drastic actions like strikes, stoppages or picketing without first making a careful study of all the possible effects. This is especially true of SSEU, because our members work in agencies providing vital community services. We owe it to the community to make sure first that a strike is necessary.
As a last resort, the SSEU, by a vote of the workers involved, may call a strike to protect the rights of those workers. Any strike must be cleared with the Local's Executive Board, and the with the national officers of the UOPWA - to be sure that every peaceful means of settlement has been tried first, and that the strike has the utmost chance of success.
Success in our efforts to win our program of SALARIES-SECURITY-SERVICE, with or without strikes, will depend on our unity and determination, the care of our preparation, our ties with the community, and our regard for the public interest.
IT'S LEGAL!
Our basic right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining has long been recognized in the social service field. Social agencies are not covered by the restrictive Taft-Hartley Act - although some board members, with Taft-Hartley mentalities, will seek to restrict salaries and to resist efforts to improve them.
Hundreds of social agencies have signed agreements with the SSEU throughout this country and Canada.
IT'S ACCEPTABLE!
Joining a union is the accepted thing today in the social work and nonprofit field, for both office and professional workers.
Social work leaders, professional associations, and thousands of workers all agree that collective bargaining is the most satisfactory and dignified means of employer-employee relations. They agree too, that trade unionism has become one of the most important ways of advancing the social work profession.
The American Association of Social Workers supports the right of social service employees to bargain collectively.
Prominent individuals in social work - like Clarence King, of the New York School of Social Work; Marion Hathway and Gertrude Wilson, of the University of Pittsburgh, Mary Van Kleeck, of the Russel Sage Foundation; Wayne McMillen, of the University of Chicago; and others - support our right to bargain collectively.
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Some of the UOPWA offices where you can get more information about what SSEU can do for you:
NEW YORK: 30 East 29 Street, New York 16, N.Y.
NEW ENGLAND: 173 MLK Street, Boston, Mass.
NEW JERSEY: 12 Edison Place, Newark, N.J.
E. PENNA, MD, DEL: 1711 Chestnut, Philadelphia
W. PENNA, W. VA: 248 Fourth Ave., Pittsburgh
MICHIGAN: 1442 Griswold street, Detroit, Mich.
MIDWEST: 166 W. Washington Street, Chicago, Ill.
OHIO-KENTUCKY: 1910 East 26 St., Cleveland, Ohio
WEST COAST: 150 Golden Gate Ave, San Francisco
SO. CALIF: 5851 Avalon Blvd., Los Angeles
CANADA: 61 Avenue Road, Toronto, Ontario
OTHERS: UOPWA, 1860 Broadway, New York 23, N.Y."
**** One of the 11 purged CIO unions, UOPWA was expelled from the C.I.O. in 1954. They merged into the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union for survival.****
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