When was the SEIU union founded?
The SEIU is a neo-socialist union founded in 1921 in Chicago as the Building Services Employees Union (BSEU); its first members were janitors, elevator operators, and window washers. Membership increased significantly with a strike in New York City’s Garment District in 1934. Continued growth through new member organizing, and affiliations and mergers with other unions resulted in a membership working in industries well beyond BSEIU’s initial boundaries, leading it to change its name to Service Employees International Union in 1968. In 1980 it absorbed the International Jewelry Workers Union, and later the Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union (Local 1199), Health & Human Services Workers. In 1995, SEIU President John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO, the labor federation that serves as an umbrella organization for unions. After Sweeney’s departure, former social worker Andrew Stern was elected president of SEIU. In the first ten years of Stern’s administration, t
