SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today (SMART)

SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today (SMART) is an organization of rank-and-file members of SEIU who believe that members are the real source of strength for our Union and the people behind every victory.

Members have fought for years in our work sites, in the streets, and in the halls of government to make SEIU the largest and strongest union in the country – now 1.9 million workers strong. Members also know that growth is critical to our success, and to rebuilding a fighting labor movement – but not growth at all costs, and not without full participation of the members.

For the sake of growth at all costs, some recent agreements orchestrated by SEIU’s leadership in D.C. have traded away high contract standards, limited members’ free speech and ability to protect the public we serve, and compromised our right to strike. All this has been done without real member involvement.

Many in SEIU have grave concerns that in recent years, SEIU’s leadership in D.C. has drifted away from our membership, forgetting that we are the ones who make our Union strong. Dozens of mergers have been imposed without any member involvement or truly democratic procedures, resulting in trusteeships that replace elected leaders with appointed ones. Constitutional changes have given the president and International Union’s Executive Board unprecedented powers to force coordinated bargaining, appoint our bargaining teams, and settle our contracts.

Read More: http://www.reformseiu.org/