Iran’s embattled clerics recently received a public relations assist from an unusual messenger: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The union, one of the United States’ largest, released a statement condemning any military action against Iran. It attacked President Trump, implying he’s a “would-be dictator,” without naming the real-life authoritarians who have led Iran for several decades.
The union also decried the “billionaires who finance endless violence,” without referencing the billions Iran has spent to fund terrorist groups throughout the Middle East.
The hypocrisy doesn’t stop there. The SEIU justified its military opposition by saying it “stands with workers in Iran,” when those same workers can’t legally form unions in the first place. According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, labor activists there are routinely arrested and jailed for the apparently dangerous act of asking for fair wages and safe working conditions.
Why wouldn’t the union want new leadership that respects workers’ rights? Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the SEIU has appeared to support an authoritarian or violent regime.
In 2017, a top executive at 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East (one of the union’s largest locals) traveled to Venezuela to serve as an “election monitor” for Nicolas Maduro.
In a quote that would make Walter Duranty proud, the union’s leader told a Caracas news outlet of the election: “99% of the Venezuelans support the process, support their government and they want peace and they want to continue the social gains they have made under the Bolivarian Revolution.”
Human Rights Watch later called that election a “sham,” noting serious concerns about its transparency and integrity.
Since then, the “brutality of repression” from the Maduro regime — including killings, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and the jailing of critics and opposition figures — has been extensively documented by international rights groups. Thousands of Venezuelans have expressed relief that their country is no longer suffering “under the Bolivarian Revolution.”
More recently, the SEIU’s high-profile affiliate Starbucks Workers United tweeted “Solidarity With Palestine” immediately following the horrific Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. If there was any doubt as to the meaning of the tweet, the unionized baristas included a photo of one of the terrorists’ bulldozers taking down a security fence in Israel.
Even after receiving national backlash for the comment, the union couldn’t bring itself to condemn the attacks. The group subsequently released a vague statement professing “solidarity” with Palestine, saying only “each death occurring as the result of violence is a tragedy.”
Unions already have a brand problem. Recent BLS data show that private-sector union membership remains at an all-time low, with just under six percent of American workers handing over dues. The SEIU has been especially hard-hit; despite a $100 million multi-year investment in organizing the hospitality industry, only 1.8 percent of restaurant workers are currently part of a union.
If the SEIU wants to show workers it cares about their well-being, the union and its affiliates can start by criticizing rogue regimes that stand in the way of workers’ rights.