Purple Power

Luís LM Aguiar is associate professor of sociology in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He is coeditor of The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy. Joseph A. McCartin is a professor of history and executive director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. He is the author of Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America.

"Louis Aguiar and Joseph McCartin have assembled a collection of laudatory essays, by labor-oriented academics, on SEIU's history as a healthcare, public employee, and service sector union, how it developed signature campaigns among janitors and fast food workers, and then promoted its 'organizing model' among labor federations abroad." --BeyondChron"A very stimulating read. The book's multidisciplinary approach brings together a wide range of perspectives that increase the level of insight into the SEIU and the broader issue of labor organizing for precarious workers. It also highlights the complexity of the SEIU and challenges commentators who unquestionably praise the union's role in the U.S. labor movement, or dismiss it."--Greg Patmore, author of Innovative Consumer Co-operatives: The Rise and Fall of Berkeley

• Acknowledgments1 Seeing Purple: An Introduction to the History and Global Significance of SEIU Joseph A. McCartin and Luís LM Aguiar Part I. Dynamics of Growth and Transformation 2 From Flats to the White House: A Brief History of SEIU, 1910-2010 Benjamin L. Peterson 3 Reconciling Progressive Idealism with Centralized Control: An Institutional Analysis of SEIU's GrowthKyoung-Hee Yu 4 Becoming Purple: Organizational Change at SEIU During the Andy Stern YearsAdrienne E. Eaton, Janice Fine, and Allison Porter Part II. Developing the Organizing Model 5 Persistence, Militancy, and Power: The Evolution of Justice for Janitors from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., 1987-1998 Alyssa May Kuchinski and Joseph A. McCartin 6 Rank-and-File Leadership Development and Its Implications for Education Justice Veronica Terriquez 7 Organizing Fast Food: Opportunities, Challenges, and SEIU Maite Tapia and Tashlin Lakhani Part III. Global Influence and Its Challenges 8 Renewing Union Practices and Strategies: A Case Study of SEIU's Sweet $16 Campaign in Ontario, Canada Laurence Hamel-Roy and Yanick Noiseux 9 The Global Career of Justice for Janitors and the Limits of Institutional Permeability Luís LM Aguiar 10 Organizing Strategies without Borders: The Case of Brazil Euan Gibb and Luís LM Aguiar Part IV. Assessing the Legacy and Employing the Lessons of SEIU 11 The Legacy of Justice for Janitors and SEIU for the Labor Movement: An Interview with Stephen Lerner Stephen Lerner and Joseph A. McCartin Conclusion: The Future of SEIU and (Post-Neoliberal?) Labor Luís LM Aguiar and Joseph A. McCartin Contributors Index