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Leading U.S. Labor Union Launching Ambitious New ´Justice for All´ Strategies to Improve the Lives of Millions

WASHINGTON, Apr. 07 /PRNewswire/ --

Building on successes, 1.9 million-member SEIU uniting around goals to change America, including quality affordable healthcare for all

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Building on a historic record of success helping workers improve their lives, a leading U.S. labor union is uniting around an ambitious new set of strategies and goals that, when achieved, will improve the lives of millions of working people and change America. The new "Justice for All" strategies, which will be voted on at the union's June convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, were unanimously endorsed March 31 by the elected leaders of the SEIU Executive Committee and sent to the union's International Executive Board for consideration in early May.

Today, 70 SEIU local union leaders representing more than 80 percent of all 1.9 million SEIU members also released a statement (http://seiufactchecker.org/seiu_future/unity_statement/default.aspx) committing to unity, strength, and respect for democracy within SEIU in order to achieve this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the country and change workers' lives. The goals include electing a new worker-friendly U.S. President and Congress and winning:

affordable, quality healthcare for all

an economy that rewards work

quality services with fair and reliable funding

comprehensive immigration reform

the freedom of all workers to form a union.

For the past two years, the members and elected local union leaders of SEIU (Service Employees International Union) have engaged in a series of discussions and debates to review what has worked and not worked within SEIU and develop proposed "Justice for All" recommendations for SEIU's work from 2008-2012 (http://www.SEIUFactChecker.org). Despite helping a record one million workers unite in SEIU since 1996, SEIU leaders are uniting behind even bigger breakthrough strategies to help workers both inside and outside the union change their lives in today's difficult economic and political climate.

Full statement is online at SEIUFactChecker.org (http://seiufactchecker.org/seiu_future/unity_statement/default.aspx)

SEIU's agenda for the next four years will be debated and voted on by thousands of union members and leaders at the June convention. SEIU leaders are committing to work together to build on the choices made at the 1996, 2000, and 2004 conventions that have built SEIU into the most successful workers' organization of our time and the leading advocacy group in North America.

The recommendations being developed for the convention are the next step in an SEIU process begun in 1996 toward building a strong and effective voice for working people in SEIU's three core industries -- healthcare, public services, and property services -- as well as in American communities, and our country as a whole. The recommendations are:

-- Members leading a union-wide breakthrough strategy with the focus and scale to unite working people to change lives

-- Dramatically increasing member action and leadership to help working people win

-- Increasing political strength to build a permanent working families political majority in our country to seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before us for real change to restore the American Dream.

At the heart of SEIU's "Justice for All" strategies is a lesson that has emerged from the history of working people in America -- workers win when unions are inclusive and use their strength to reach out and unite all non-union workers, and lose when they do not.

For more information about SEIU's recommended proposals for 2008-2012, visit www.SEIUFactChecker.org.