Pride At Work

Proposal #205

Equal Rights For All SEIU Members

While members of SEIU have a variety of views about marriage, according to their personal or religious beliefs, it is a fundamental, uniting principle of our organization that all people are entitled to equal rights.

Many of our members have participated over the years--both as union members and in their communities--in movements for equal rights for people of color, immigrants, women, people with disabilities, seniors, and others.

In doing so, we have often embraced movements for equal rights that were controversial at the time and that opponents of working people's interests tried to use as wedge issues to divide our strength.

As a union, we have a particular responsibility to protect equal rights in connection with collective bargaining, economic benefits, legislation, and any employer or government action that affects SEIU members.

In that spirit, SEIU has a long history of support for equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers.

We recognize that lack of access to marriage deprives gay and lesbian working families of more than 1,000 rights and benefits afforded heterosexual families, such as spousal Social Security and pension benefits, hospital visitation rights, spousal health insurance, immigration rights, and many other federal, state, and local protections, as well as rights in the workplace.

Civil-union and domestic-artnership laws, while well intentioned, create an unequal legal status for same-sex couples that extends only a few of the state and local-level protections and benefits afforded "spouses" in heterosexual marriage.

Therefore be it resolved:

This convention affirms SEIU's commitment to equal rights for all our members, regardless of sexual orientation.

SEIU will make it a collective bargaining and legislative goal to ensure that all members enjoy equal rights and benefits.

SEIU will support the right of same-sex couples to access the full and equal rights, responsibilities, and commitments of civil marriage and oppose laws and constitutional amendments that deny that right.

SEIU will resist any attempt by anti-worker forces to use this issue in elections this year or beyond to divide working people in order to elect candidates with proven track records of favoring corporate special interests at the expense of working families.

Submitted by the International Executive Board

Referred to Resolutions Committee

Approved by delegates, June 22, 2004

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