SEIU Full Article Summer 2026
We Need Each Other
April Verrett
President, SEIU
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that nobody makes it alone. Not a worker standing up to a bad boss. Not a local union fighting for a strong contract. Not a movement trying to build enough power to change a country.
Nobody makes it alone.
That truth was on my mind recently as SEIU participated in the AFL-CIO convention after more than twenty years apart. Walking into that convention hall, I was reminded of something that can be easy to forget in our day-to-day work: while we may belong to different unions, work in different industries, and come from different communities, our futures are deeply connected.
And frankly, they have to be.
Because the challenges working people face today are bigger than any one workplace and bigger than any one union.
Every day, SEIU members provide the care and services families count on. Members of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades show up and do work that shapes the world around us. You beautify schools and hospitals. You restore bridges and public buildings. You help create spaces where people live, work, heal, and learn. Your craftsmanship leaves a mark that can last generations.
There is dignity in that work. But there is also a larger story.
The labor movement has never been about a single trade or a single workplace. It has always been about working people recognizing that their struggles are connected.
The eight-hour day did not belong to one union. The weekend did not belong to one union. Workplace safety, pensions, healthcare protections, overtime pay, collective bargaining rights—none of these victories belonged to a single organization.
They belonged to workers who understood that when they stood together, they could accomplish things that would have been impossible alone.
That lesson matters just as much today as it did a century ago. Because the forces working against working people have become more organized, not less.
Corporate power is organized. Political power is organized. The billionaire class is organized.
For decades, powerful interests have worked to weaken unions, suppress wages, undermine worker protections, and convince people that they are on their own.
At the same time, too many working families are being asked to do more with less.
People are working harder than ever. Yet housing feels further away. Healthcare feels further away. Retirement feels further away. The promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll be able to build a good life feels further away.
That is why I spend so much time talking about three things:
Money. Power. Respect.
Because when you strip away all the politics and all the noise, that is what workers are really fighting for.
Money means being able to provide for your family without constantly worrying about whether one emergency will throw everything off track. It means a paycheck that reflects the value of your labor. It means being able to dream a little about the future instead of just surviving the present.
Power means having a voice. It means having a say over the conditions of your work. It is the comfort of knowing that decisions affecting your life are not being made entirely without you. Power is democracy at work.
And respect means being treated as a human being.
It means understanding that workers are not disposable. That our labor matters. That our lives matter. That the people who build, clean, care for, teach, transport, and maintain this country deserve dignity.
Money. Power. Respect.
That is what unions deliver.
And that is why solidarity matters.
A painter in Pennsylvania may have a different job than a home care worker in Virginia.
A glazier in Nevada may have a different workplace than an airport worker in California.
An apprentice learning a trade today may have a different experience than a nurse, teacher, or manufacturing worker.
But at the end of the day, we are all fighting for the same thing: the right to live and work with dignity.
That is why every organizing victory matters. The labor movement has never been at its best when we focused only on ourselves. We have been at our best when we understood that our strength comes from one another.
That is how previous generations built the movement we inherited.
And it is how our generation will build the movement that comes next.
I’m so inspired and proud that SEIU is back together with the AFL-CIO along with IUPAT and so many other unions. So whether you wear an IUPAT shirt, an SEIU shirt, an IBEW shirt, a UAW shirt, or the colors of any other union, remember this:
You are part of something bigger than any one workplace.
Bigger than any one local.
Bigger than any one union.
You are part of a movement built by working people who believe that dignity is worth fighting for.
And together, there is no limit to what we can build.
