Welcome back! We missed you. And wow has a lot happened since the last time we talked. We’ve got a whole new Democratic ticket and a campaign increasingly centered around economic populism. Needless to say, there’s a lot to discuss. So today we’re talking with Service Employees International Union President April Verrett about why she believes labor unions are intrinsic to upholding our democracy. April reflects on the power of working people and her intersectional approach to leadership.
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On today’s episode
Our host
Errin Haines is The 19th’s editor-at-large and writer of The Amendment newsletter. An award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience, Errin was previously a national writer on race for the Associated Press. She’s also worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
Follow Errin on Instagram @emarvelous and X @errinhaines.
Today’s guest
April Verrett is the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest labor unions in the country representing healthcare and public service workers. She previously served as the president of SEIU local 2015. She’s originally from Chicago.
Follow April on X @SEIUPres.
Episode transcript
The Amendment podcast transcripts are automatically generated by a third-party website and may contain typos or other errors. Please consider the official record for The Amendment podcast to be the audio publicly available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Errin Haines:
Who wouldn’t wanna talk to you? You know, all the things.
April Verrett:
All the people that I get on their nerves.
Errin:
Mm-Hmm. And it’s an election year, so I definitely wanna talk to you.
Errin:
Hey y’all, welcome to The Amendment, a weekly conversation about gender, politics, and power from The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. I’m your host, Errin Haines. Well, I’ve been on a bit of a break. Has anything happened while I was gone this summer? Oh no, wait. The entire 2024 presidential race has completely changed. So Vice President Harris, who is now Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, picked a running mate, Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz. And then there was a Democratic National Convention, which I actually just got back from in Chicago. Were you all there? Were you all watching? Are there thoughts? Are there feelings? Are there reactions in the room? Let me know. Listen, I was there in the arena and I really saw Democrats putting economic populism front and center.
April Verrett at the DNC:
Y’all. We are going to build a younger, darker, hipper, fresher sneaker wearing labor movement, A movement that is gonna be more inclusive and built for the middle class. And we are going to end poverty wage work for once and for all.
Errin:
That’s today’s guest, April Verrett, and this spring the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, elected April as their president. And she’s the first Black woman ever to hold that position. Now what is SEIU? Well, it’s a union with over 2 million service and care workers, and April’s approach to leading a union is deeply intersectional. I saw labor really front and center at this convention, and I know that it’s probably going to be pretty important to the election this November. So coming off of Labor Day weekend, as we dive into another election cycle with labor at the center, I knew I had to talk to April. I wanted to hear about why she thinks building a better democracy means building union strength. Welcome, April.
April:
Thank you so much, Errin. I really appreciate you having me.
Errin:
Absolutely. Well listen, let’s get into it. I wanna start by kind of asking you about unions and how you came to understand why they’re important. Now, I know your grandmother was a union steward for SEIU Local 46. So you have watched the power of unions from a young age. I wanna know what that experience really taught you about the importance of unions in our country.
April:
Sure. So I’m from Chicago, it is Chicago is a union town. So it wasn’t so ingrained in my consciousness for much of my childhood, but I can remember my grandmother, who was a steward and a leader, um, where she worked being super proud when Jarvis Williams, the first Black man, was elected to lead her local union. And there was talk at some point about them going out on strike and how excited she was and and motivated. And I knew that because of the union, like we were better off than a lot of other people in our communities. But it wasn’t until I actually became an organizer and fell in love with organizing that I really learned about the union and the power of collective action.
Errin:
Yeah, and I guess, so what did you come to understand about the relationship between organizing and unions?
April:
I can vividly remember sitting at Brenda Richardson’s kitchen table. She was a housekeeper, worked in the environmental service department at Roseland Community Hospital on the south side of Chicago, and the workers at Roseland wanted a union. She lived in the Al Gale Gardens, right? A kind of infamous housing project in Chicago, famously organized by Barack Obama back in the day. But just Brenda’s apathy, um, as a low wage worker on public assistance. You know, single mom struggling, trying to get by. And I watched her transform from that conversation to dancing in the streets when she and her coworkers won their election. And that is what hooked me. And so it was the power that Brenda was able to discover in herself and how that power could transform her life, not just in her workplace, but she could become a different person. And the relationship that she was in that was abusive, she could become a different parent and grandparent for her children and her grandchildren. She could become a different citizen as it relates to exercising her power and her democracy, as well as becoming a different worker at her hospital where she chose to make a decision to use her power collectively with her coworkers power for transformational change.
Errin:
It’s interesting because you know, when a lot of people think about unions, they might think of, you know, White guys and hard hats, right? Like those kinds of jobs. But SEIU is a union of service and care workers, right? The people who make your Starbucks, the people who are working in these hospitals, people who care for people living in retirement homes. So those perceptions maybe are changing. I think they especially changed with the pandemic. Uh, but I wonder if working in SEIU has changed the way that you think about and even talk about what a union worker, who a union worker is
April:
The union and my journey as an organizer and a leader in our union has not just been about how I work with others, but it’s been my own personal journey and my own personal journey as a Black woman, as a worker who grew up in poverty, like who lived with the shame and the guilt of it, and how I’ve chosen to change that narrative. And so I believe that when we center women like me, women like Brenda, women like my grandmother, we are able to make transformational change when we tell those of us who have always been discounted, dismissed, disrespected, demeaned that no, you got power, right? You got real power. You always have. They just tried to tell us we didn’t, they just tried to take it from us. But when we are centered, when we realize our power and take our rightful place at the table of power and take our rightful place in this democracy, that is finally when this country can begin to live up to its promises.
Errin:
And not just power, but value, right? Like the value that that has always been inherently there. I think it was something that maybe people became more aware of in the pandemic, right? I mean, these are the people we talk about when we’re talking about essential workers. I wanna also talk about your role as president of SEIU Local 2015, which is California’s largest union. I wonder what fighting for those workers really taught you and how you’re bringing those lessons into your presidency now, at SEIU.
April:
2015 is a union 450,000 at this point, home care and nursing home workers across the state of California. And so going from, you know, work that is not valued to building what I believe today is the strongest voice for workers in a state like California means something. We were deeply involved in fights for criminal justice reform and electing George Gascón to be District Attorney of of Los Angeles. We stood up for issues of the environment. And so we see our role as unions as a, by fighting for everything that’s gonna make my life better because as much value as we put on pay, if you still live in a community with bad schools, if you still don’t have clean air or clean water, right? If your children still can’t walk to school and be safe, what good is a good paycheck? Right? We gotta see beyond just wages and hours and working conditions. Our members are people who live whole lives.
Errin:
Yeah. And not just people, voters, right? I mean, this is such a good reminder that these people are also voters who care about a lot of things. And so unions are not just about creating transformation within their institutions, it’s about creating, you know, their power to create change even outside of those institutions in our democracy. You started talking about this and I wanna, I wanna ask you to talk about it some more because this year you were elected, as I mentioned earlier, the first Black president of the SEIU. It feels like a huge milestone. When you were elected, you were clear about calling the labor labor movement that you’re leading anti-racist. So I wanna know why that was important to you to name that as a goal and what you think needs to happen for SEIU to get there.
April:
I think the two biggest obstacles in front of workers today is systemic and structural racism, as well as outrageous and out of control. Corporate greed, both of which lead to economic exploitation. And if we only try to solve for the, the things that the system produces and not actually try to fix the system, we’ll never, ever get ahead, right? And so we gotta go back to the original sins of this country, the original sins of our democracy and try to solve for them. And that is how we allow corporations to economically exploit people today. It’s the same economic exploitation that brought Africans to the shores of this continent, right? Wanting to exploit people for their labor. And all too often the same people that are exploited today were the same people that were exploited centuries ago. And that, and this economy is people of color, it’s women, it’s immigrants. And so we gotta call that out, um, in our organizing. We have to call that out in our campaigning and we have to have policy fixes for it.
Errin:
Is the kind of union structure framework, is that part of maybe how you all have been more successful than maybe some other parts of our democracy?
April:
I think it’s part of it and it’s part of what makes the union movement so critical and important to our democracy because there are not a lot of places where people can come together across difference and find real common ground.
Errin:
It feels like in our current politics, all roads eventually lead to the Supreme Court. So I wanna ask you about one of the cases that was on the court dock at this session that involved unions. The court was basically trying to decide whether the corporation, Starbucks, had unfairly fired employees who were trying to unionize, and ultimately eight of the nine justices decided in favor of Starbucks. Now were you watching that case move through the court? I’m just curious about what you think about how that decision could affect union organizers in the future.
April:
Yeah, so not just the that case, but we’ve been really dismayed just like so many Americans with many of the decisions that have come out of this last Supreme Court term. And it just shows us how important reform needs to be for the judicial branch of our government. And more and more we are seeing the rights of workers being eroded. Our system as it relates to labor and workers is antiquated. Work has changed over the last a hundred years. The economy has changed over the last a hundred years. So we need to write new rules that really speak to how we are thinking about workers of today as well as workers of tomorrow.
Errin:
You said that one of your goals is to have unions for all, a country where every worker can join a union. Tell me why that’s important.
April:
There are no healthy democracies on this globe without a healthy worker movement. I believe that when workers have real power, we can stand up against authoritarianism and fascism in ways that we simply can’t when we don’t. There has been a 40 year attack on labor movements in this country that rides right alongside the rise of MAGA, like the rise of fascism, you know, in this country. And we’ve had the Janice decision, which was meant to be a death blow to the labor movement. Luckily we’ve been able to withstand it and hold onto our power. But I think part of the key solution to transforming our democracy into one, making it really as strong as we possibly can is a strong union movement. And today, again, those old laws don’t allow for it. Nine in 10 workers today can’t form a union if they wanted to, right? Whether it’s because of outrageous anti-union propaganda right from the boss or the laws just don’t allow it to happen. And so we gotta open up our imaginations about what’s possible and allow workers a real seat at the table. Seven in 10 young people today wanna join a union. We gotta make that possible.
Errin:
A lot of these kind of outdated laws maybe are part of the reason why we aren’t there already. And so what has SEIU been doing to really make progress towards that goal?
April:
A year or so ago, we passed a law along with fast food workers in California to create a board right where they can bargain with the company and also establish a wage floor of at least $20 an hour. It is a new model that is about organizing across a sector, not just workplace by workplace. This year we have worked with rideshare drivers in Massachusetts to create a ballot initiative to allow for a collective bargaining process for drivers at Uber and Lyft. It would be a first of its kind arrangement for folks who do that work. We aren’t talking W2 employees. These are contracted workers, but they’re workers and they want a union, and so they should have the right to form one. And so hopefully, I know we’ll be successful in that endeavor in Massachusetts. So those are two examples of new systems, new ways that workers can exercise power in this economy the way that it works today.
Errin:
I get it. Unions are important to democracy. I think it’s a connection though, that a lot of people don’t necessarily make right away. So can you explain how unions strengthen democracy?
April:
If you look at the numbers of union members that are participants in their democracy that get out to vote compared to non-union members way higher, it allows folks to exercise their power and to think about democracy, to think about government when they don’t normally. I also just think that you gotta have organized people and organize money, particularly in light of, you know, in this post Citizens United world, we gotta have a way to aggregate power and aggregate political resource at a time when corporations can just run wild, right? And spend all of the money to buy and and pay for politicians. And so usually, and in many times outside of, you know, like really rich people that, that wanna invest in elections, it is unions that are providing money to stand up for working families in light of all of the corporate spending that we see. So our home care workers, some of the lowest paid members in our union, we represent, you know, 400,000 of them across the country. They give more voluntarily to our political action fund than any other organized group. So if you’re talking about a worker that’s making $15 an hour, her money doesn’t usually stand a chance when it’s on its own. But if she is able to aggregate her money with her coworkers and with her fellow union members, she then has a shot, right, of having her money and her vote matter.
Errin:
A lot of folks might argue that unions are detrimental, right? That the companies run better without unions. What do you say to that argument?
April:
Bullshit.
Errin:
I thought you might have some thoughts.
April:
So again, as an example, I talked about fast food workers in California, franchise owners, fast food corporations swore that having to pay workers $20 an hour would mean stores would close workers would be laid off, right? It would be chaos in the industry. The reality is that there are more people employed in the fast food industry today than there was a year ago. These policies work, these policies make things better for all of us.
Errin:
Well, we’ve been talking about corporations. I also wanna talk about politicians, right? And how you have seen, you know, whether we’re talking about presidents all the way down to city council members, how are they championing the interests of working folks?
April:
Our president has stood up for unions, right? He’s been the most pro worker president we’ve seen in recent history. And it matters, uh, particularly in a moment where workers are more interested than unions than ever. Gavin Newsom, you know, in California, some people would say he went out on a political limb to sign that fast food worker bill into law a year ago. And so Tim Walz, you know, is doing amazing things that as it relates to standing up for workers’ rights, I believe Kamala Harris is going to continue the work, when we elect her, of the Biden Harris administration as it relates to centering workers. And so though we have to grow the number of pro worker union politicians and champions, they are out there, but we are also saying we need more of them. And so when workers go to the poll this year, they are not just voting for who’s on the ticket. They are voting for themselves. We are in the process of mobilizing 6 million, what I call high opportunity. Some people wanna call them infrequent voters or low propensity voters. I call them high opportunity voters. Six million of them we are in conversation with about why their vote matters for a pro worker agenda. And so we are making sure we are sending folks to state and to the White House with a mandate stand for working people.
Errin:
Yeah. High opportunity. I’m so curious. I mean, what is the opportunity that you see in those 6 million people?
April:
So I believe that people sit on the sidelines because no one is engaging them and no one is connecting the things that matter to them, to the election, right? And so we are on the doors talking to people about crime and poverty, and we know that people want agency. People want to be self determinative. They don’t just wanna hand out. They, and they don’t still wanna be told what’s best for them. They want an opportunity to help shape their own future. And so we gotta build a democracy that is about that.
Errin:
Yeah, well, we’re expecting this to be a close election, so obviously 6 million people being mobilized would be huge. And I know that the SEIU had previously endorsed President Joe Biden and has now thrown your support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Can you talk about, I guess the decision for SEIU to endorse her and why you think that she is the candidate for workers in 2024?
April:
Vice President Harris is not new to our union. As we’ve talked about, I spent time leading in California, and so along with our members there, I got to see her up close and personal, right? She has walked a day in the shoes of SEIU members, not once, not twice. She walked a day in the shoes of a home care worker, Wendy Crow in Alameda County. She also walked a day in the shoes of a security officer Dee Lowe in Detroit, Michigan. And so she knows what it takes to get up every day and to do the work. She has been a champion for care workers as Attorney General in California. She took on big banks. Again, those are things that working people care about. When she took on banks for their fraudulent ways around mortgages that was standing up for working people when she went down to the border to look at the conditions there that was standing up for working people when she and Joe Biden forgave student loan debt that’s taking, you know, issues about working people a as well as leading the first ever White House task force on organizing and worker power.
April:
And so we know that she’s a candidate who stands with us. And so it didn’t take us long, you know, to get our board on the phone to make the choice to endorse her Sunday night right after her candidacy was announced. Because the most important thing to do in this moment is to unify behind her as our champion and to make sure we do everything to get her elected.
Errin:
Yeah, I can definitely hear the passion and the urgency in your voice around this. I mean, talk about the stakes of this election in your eyes. How will this outcome affect working folks and unions?
April:
Project 2025, project 2025, project 2025, you know, it is there in black and white. They are coming for us, right? Not just for labor movement, which is clear in their little plan, but they are coming for working people. And we have to have our eyes wide open and know, you know, what is at stake in this election. We could – I talk about the Supreme Court before – we could lose it for another 30, 40 years, right? If Trump has the ability to appoint justices, ’cause these folks are crazy. You know? They really wanna take us back decades. And so we have to stand in the gap and not allow that to happen.
Errin:
A lot of people that listen to The Amendment are probably also workers. So if they’re listening to this and you know, they’re like one of those seven in 10 young people that you mentioned who want to try to start a union or who want to join a union in their workplace, what advice would you give them to get started?
April:
The most important thing for workers to do is to talk to their coworkers, right? To not be afraid. The magic of the union is with the people that you work with every day. And so that’s the most important first step, is talk to your coworkers and reach out to organizers. I am all about building a younger, darker, hipper, swaggier, more inclusive labor movement, right? That looks like America of today. Right now, far too many labor unions still look like America of yesteryear. We need to center the future. And that is more workers of color. That is younger workers. That is women. So let’s start there. But we also need to center what is our goal? Like what are we trying to accomplish with our worker power? And so in SEIU, we are trying to build enough worker power to end poverty wages for once and for all. We’re trying to build enough worker power that we can strengthen and defend and transform our democracy. We’re trying to build enough worker power to heal our environment. We’re trying to build enough worker power to end racism and a white supremacy and authoritarianism. We gotta be about something.
Errin:
April Verrett thank you so much for talking to me about really your vision for perfecting unions and the role of unions in our democracy. I really appreciate it.
April:
I appreciate you taking the time, Errin. Thanks so much.
Errin:
The Amendment is a co-production of The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan, Terri Rupar, Faith Smith and Emily Rudder. The show is edited by Grace Lynch and Julia B. Chan, produced by Brittany Martinez, Grace Lynch and Luci Jones, and post-production support from Julie Bogen, Victoria Clark, Lance Dixon, and Wynton Wong. Artwork by Aria Goodman. Our theme music is composed by Jlin.
