Service unions aim to build clout for minorities

Two Service Employees International Union locals are flexing their political muscle this year, concentrating massive get-out-the-vote efforts in minority neighborhoods and providing crucial ground support to three minority candidates for City Council.

Spending thousands and supplying equipment and hundreds of volunteers for campaign efforts, the racially diverse SEIU unions are jumping into the race in a much larger way than in the past and looking to be a force in an arena long dominated by more prosperous unions.

SEIU 1199, a powerful New York-based union that recently absorbed thousands of area healthcare workers, is pumping more than $70,000 into get-out-the-vote efforts in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. Together with Local 615, a janitors' union, it is also supplying scores of volunteers to help at-large candidates Felix D. Arroyo and Sam Yoon and District 6 candidate Gibran Rivera, three minority candidates on the ballot.

Rocio Saenz, president of Local 615, whose members include many immigrants and low-wage earners, said her union wants to develop a powerful political voice on behalf of its members. She said the union's membership wants to elect liberal politicians who understand the needs of an increasingly diverse Boston.

''Our membership is the face of the New Bostonian," she said.

Representing thousands of votes, unions of building trades workers, teachers, police, and firefighters have long commanded the attention of city councilors and other politicians in Boston, while lower-paid service employees have typically faded into the background.

But with new money and political expertise from the recent merger, and with new voters potentially energized by more racial and ethnic minorities on the ballot this year, the SEIU unions are finding a foothold. That is likely to mean a change in the nature of union power in the city, said professor James Green, who teaches Boston history and labor studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

''The strongest unions in the city have traditionally had a majority of white men, and some of the unions that were diverse have disappeared because of decline of manufacturing, so the union membership hasn't reflected the majority of the workforce," he said. ''What you're seeing now with the SEIU is a real diversity of leadership, and this is a relatively new thing."

SEIU 1199 and Local 615 have endorsed two other contenders for citywide council seats, Council President Michael Flaherty and Councilor Steve Murphy, and are asking their members to support them. They are also strong supporters of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and SEIU 1199 is spending $30,000 on radio ads for his reelection campaign.

The effort goes beyond the possibility of electing three candidates who favor liberal causes such as rent stabilization and who would add diversity to the majority-white City Council, union leaders said. By encouraging minority and working-class residents to vote regularly in municipal elections, they said, they hope to solidify their political power on issues such as Medicaid policy and workers' rights that may reach beyond the purview of the City Council.

That is particularly true for the local healthcare workers who this year merged with SEIU 1199, a union with deep roots in the civil rights movement.

''Survey after survey shows that residents across those neighborhoods have lots of the same goals and values" as the union, said the Massachusetts director of SEIU 1199, Mike Fadel. ''If voter turnout increases in those areas, then those goals would be better reflected in elected office."

Leaders of Local 615, a young union that has put large efforts into political organizing over the past year, said they are also grooming a new group of political activists. Many of the low-wage workers spending their time canvassing neighborhoods are new immigrants who have never participated in American politics before, said Saenz, the local's president.

''Many of our members may not vote yet, but I think as they participate, they're also educating their kids, their families, and their neighborhoods, who will be part of the civic process," she said. ''You will see much more in years to come."

In the City Council races, the unions are focusing on Arroyo, Yoon, and Rivera, providing scores of volunteers to stuff envelopes, distribute fliers, and make phone calls. The help has proved critical, as all three have raised less money than many of their opponents and cannot afford television and radio advertising.

Both unions are using their diverse membership to help the candidates tap votes from minority neighborhoods. SEIU 1199's members include large numbers of Haitians, Dominicans, and Cape Verdeans; the majority of Local 615's membership is Hispanic and its political director is Felix Arroyo Jr.

The night before the preliminary election, Spanish-speaking members of Local 615 called 2,500 Latinos who have voted most frequently in past elections for Arroyo; before that, they went house to house in East Boston to drop literature for Arroyo while it was raining. SEIU 1199 has lent a number of candidates use of its automated phone call machines; Arroyo seized the opportunity to have Councilors Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey, the two African-American city councilors, send messages to voters in their district. The union is also sending its members door-to-door with get-out-the-vote fliers in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan.

''For us, the benefit is the members of the unions are predominantly folks of color, and our voting base in Boston is predominantly the communities of color," said Patrick Keaney, Arroyo's campaign manager. ''We're able to send workers out into those communities that look like the people who live there, and that are saying Election Day is coming, our community has a voice, and we need to vote to keep him there."