California unions prioritize left-wing ideology – Latest News
I spent almost twenty years in California’s labor motion, organizing large teams just like the California Nurses Association, Screen Actors Guild, and more. But I left in 2014 after the motion embraced “social justice unionism,” specializing in left-wing social points as a substitute of employees’ pursuits.
Oakland, the place I’m primarily based, has grow to be a hotbed of this sort of exercise. One of my former unions, SEIU Local 1021, has taken a hard-left flip, and supported a since-recalled mayor who now faces federal corruption prices. Other unions have endorsed an anti-coal marketing campaign that’s pushing town to the brink of fiscal collapse. Social justice unionism, in short, threatens to break Oakland—and it might do the identical to the remainder of California.
Supervisor Matt Dorsey watches as frontline metropolis employees from IFPTE Local 21, SEIU Local 1021, and the San Francisco Building Trades maintain a protest during the weekly San Francisco Supervisors assembly in 2025. San Francisco Chronicle through Getty Images
SEIU Local 1021 is a poster baby of social-justice unionism. It boasts more than 60,000 members and claims to symbolize employees throughout Northern California. But as a substitute of preventing completely for higher working situations, SEIU 1021 more and more focuses on issues like “reproductive rights, climate justice, immigrants, Black Lives and gender equality.”
The union hasn’t been shy about this new agenda. In 2021, union delegates voted overwhelmingly to go a “racial justice plank.” The new platform dedicated SEIU 1021 to the fights “against over-policing of Black and brown communities” and for the abolition of “private, for-profit prisons and immigration detention centers” in California.
Sheng Thao outdoors the United States District Court. San Francisco Chronicle through Getty Images
Then, SEIU 1021 cozied up to town’s failed management. Starting in 2022, the union started boosting the marketing campaign and administration of Sheng Thao, the since-recalled Oakland mayor now going through federal corruption prices. SEIU 1021 performed a position in her 2022 election victory, donating $100,000 to “Working Families for a Better Oakland,” a union-dominated group that obtained over $550,000 for Thao’s marketing campaign. (I used to be one of Thao’s opponents.)
Under Thao’s management, Oakland skilled two of its worst years in current reminiscence. In 2023, crime spiked, with burglaries, robberies, and motor-vehicle thefts rising 23 p.c, 38 p.c, and 44 p.c, respectively. In 2024, In-N-Out even closed its Oakland location, citing crime issues—the primary time the chain had closed a location in company historical past.
A bunch referred to as Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao launched a recall marketing campaign in response to those failures. In June 2024, the marketing campaign, which I led, had garnered enough signatures to get on that fall’s poll. Days after the marketing campaign crossed the signature threshold, Thao’s home was raided by the FBI—however the recall marketing campaign continued.
In reality, SEIU 1021 gave the previous mayor $50,000 to combat the recall—regardless of the FBI’s having already raided her home. Rank-and-file members had been most likely shocked by the union’s help for an unpopular mayor. Unsurprisingly, in November, Thao was recalled, with some 60 p.c of voters supporting her ouster.
SEIU 1021 isn’t the one union complicit within the metropolis’s failures—in actual fact, different unions are pushing Oakland to the brink of fiscal collapse.
In 2015, activists based the “No Coal in Oakland” motion, hoping to keep coal out of town. The motion, backed by a minimum of 17 labor unions, secured help from many elected officers.
Carroll Fife, a candidate for the Oakland City Council District 3 seat, speaks to supporters during a transient rally. San Francisco Chronicle through Getty Images
The marketing campaign had only one drawback: town had already entered into a binding development settlement with Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT), permitting coal to be shipped by way of the port. When town reversed course and used its regulatory authority to dam the project, it triggered years of litigation. Oakland finally misplaced the lawsuit—a defeat which will show expensive.
An OBOT sublessee, Insight Terminal Solutions, filed claims looking for damages that would attain into the a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands at a time when Oakland is already going through a structural funds deficit.
Seneca Scott talking to a crowd of people at an outside occasion. Seneca Scott
Seneca Scott and different protestors holding indicators demanding to “Clean City Hall” as a result of “Budget Deficit” and “Failed Leaders.”
Now, because the case strikes towards decision, the results of these union-backed loyalty pledges are materializing. The metropolis, already on the brink of chapter, might face a minimum of $230 million in potential legal responsibility, with whole publicity presumably exceeding $600 million.
Oakland employees are more and more fed up with their leaders’ hard-left flip. According to my evaluation, 503 of SEIU 1021’s 2,031 listed members are no longer paying dues. Other California unions show related trends: 26 p.c of employees represented by SEIU Local 99 within the Los Angeles Unified School District have stopped paying union dues as of 2024, and almost 48 p.c of the roughly 100,000 staff lined by SEIU Local 1000 have left or refused membership.
Seneca Scott talking at an occasion below a banner that reads “Seneca Scott for Oakland Mayor, Neighbors Together, We Deserve Better.” Seneca Scott
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By prioritizing left-wing ideology over employees’ pursuits, California unions have left many rank-and-file members feeling alienated, disempowered, and pissed off with management that seems more targeted on ideological campaigns than on office illustration.
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If California’s labor motion hopes to regain the trust of the working class, it should return to its authentic mission: representing employees. Until then, the state will proceed as an instance what occurs when a motion constructed to stability energy as a substitute cozies up to it.
Seneca Scott is a political strategist, author, and organizer primarily based in Oakland and Nashville.
