SEIU Launches National Healthcare Union

One Million Members are a Voice for Quality Care

Local 880 home care workers and home health aides joined thousands of health care and long term care workers from across the country in Baltimore, Maryland, to launch SEIU Healthcare in June.

SEIU Healthcare unites more than one million healthcare workers-- including nurses, nursing home CNAs, home care workers and more-- to fix our country's broken health care system.

The primary goals of SEIU Healthcare are:

• Raising Standards. More healthcare employers are national companies, so it makes sense for healthcare workers to come together on the national level too.
• Uniting More Healthcare Workers. We're already one million members strong, but to really change the healthcare system in America we must reach out to the millions of healthcare workers who don't yet have a strong voice on the job for quality care.
• Holding Politicians Accountable. Many decisions about healthcare funding happen at the federal level. These decisions impact healthcare workers locally, so we're building a strong national organization to hold elected officials accountable on healthcare funding.
• Quality Care for All. We're working together to transform our country's health care system to ensure that everyone has access to quality, affordable health care. As workers who are on the front lines of our healthcare system each day, it's important that our voices are heard when deciding the direction of American healthcare.

Local 880 home care workers brought important information and new skills back from Baltimore, and we're taking the energy and momentum from the launch back to our communities and workplaces.

"I’m working to get the word out to other healthcare workers to show just how extraordinary it is that we’ve come together," said Patricia Rowsey, a home care worker in Quincy, Illinois. "We need to stand up, to speak out and fight—not just for ourselves, but for our families and communities, to change the world."

"In Baltimore I was able to see firsthand what happens when healthcare workers build a strong union," said Indianapolis home health aide Thelma Moore. "I'm committed to bring that energy I felt home so that thousands of Indiana workers will come together and see our vision for quality care and quality jobs."

SEIU Healthcare delegates are taking the lead in collecting signatures in support of fully funding State Children's Health Insurance, or SCHIP (known as Kid Care or All Kids in Illinois). Our petitions will be presented to legislators soon. Click here to sign the petition and protect SCHIP funding!