Reddit reviews Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement

Well, it is a very large union with many different locals so it isn't fair to dismiss it out of hand. There are certainly some good locals with good politics and a good approach to organizing.

Overall, and especially at the highest levels, the union is very corporate and extremely into doing the bidding of shitty milquetoast Democrats. I think it makes sense for unions to engage politically, but they are very wedded to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. Hillary's slogan, Stronger Together, was literally directly lifted from SEIU. There was scandal in a number of big locals when the union endorsed Hillary, as she has been no friend to labor (serving on Walmart's board, etc., etc.).

In addition, the union is overall not interested or invested in real worker struggle. Again, there are a few locals that go against this, such as 1199 New England, but in general the union is heavily against striking or industrial action. It greatly favors corporate partnership agreements, where the union creates pro-business preconditions to any collective bargaining agreement which effectively put certain things workers might want off the table so as to induce corporations to go easier on union organizing. It's a strategy that maybe made sense at one point but it severely limits the effectiveness of the union in being a real vehicle for worker power long-term.

I can talk more about this if folks want, just PM me. If you are really interested I would highly recommend two books by Jane McAlevey, a labor organizer and leader who served as director of Nevada's big SEIU local. She has real-life examples of the problems with SEIU but also talks about the good things workers have been able to accomplish within it. They are both good books - Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell) and No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age - but I would recommend the first very highly.

EDIT: I do want to say that if you are looking to organize, it is worth calling them. I think I am probably too cynical from direct involvement in a lot of organizing, and I want to be clear that my views are just that. This current moment for the labor movement is probably the worst it's been in since the Red Scare at least, and a lot of big unions are just turtling up and trying to weather the storm. SEIU, to its credit, has still prioritized organizing and spends a lot of money on organizing efforts even if they won't lead to obvious wins for the union. Also, they do have a lot of resources which can be very helpful to being successful at organizing. The IWW is cool, but it is tiny (less than 3,000 members globally, most of whom are at-large members whose membership has nothing to do with working anywhere, which is fine but very different than most unions) and it has no resources. There are cool things going on with it, but if you are looking for a more traditional union organizing effort where you will get support in building an organizing committee and moving to an election and then negotiating a collective bargaining agreement, I would call SEIU or another large union that has some involvement in your industry.

Soooo I guess I basically just walked back my initial comment. Shit's complex, everyone.