I spent nearly two decades in California’s labor movement, organizing massive groups like the California Nurses Association, Screen Actors Guild, and more. But I left in 2014 after the movement embraced “social justice unionism,” focusing on left-wing social issues instead of workers’ interests.
Oakland, where I’m based, has become a hotbed of this kind of activity. One of my former unions, SEIU Local 1021, has taken a hard-left turn, and supported a since-recalled mayor who now faces federal corruption charges. Other unions have endorsed an anti-coal campaign that is pushing the city to the brink of fiscal collapse. Social justice unionism, in short, threatens to ruin Oakland—and it could do the same to the rest of California.
SEIU Local 1021 is a poster child of social-justice unionism. It boasts more than 60,000 members and claims to represent workers across Northern California. But instead of fighting exclusively for better working conditions, SEIU 1021 increasingly focuses on things like “reproductive rights, climate justice, immigrants, Black Lives and gender equality.”
The union hasn’t been shy about this new agenda. In 2021, union delegates voted overwhelmingly to pass a “racial justice plank.” The new platform committed SEIU 1021 to the fights “against over-policing of Black and brown communities” and for the abolition of “private, for-profit prisons and immigration detention centers” in California.
Then, SEIU 1021 cozied up to the city’s failed leadership. Starting in 2022, the union began boosting the campaign and administration of Sheng Thao, the since-recalled Oakland mayor now facing federal corruption charges. SEIU 1021 played a role in her 2022 election victory, donating $100,000 to “Working Families for a Better Oakland,” a union-dominated group that received over $550,000 for Thao’s campaign. (I was one of Thao’s opponents.)
Under Thao’s leadership, Oakland experienced two of its worst years in recent memory. In 2023, crime spiked, with burglaries, robberies, and motor-vehicle thefts rising 23 percent, 38 percent, and 44 percent, respectively. In 2024, In-N-Out even closed its Oakland location, citing crime concerns—the first time the chain had closed a location in company history.
A group called Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao launched a recall campaign in response to these failures. In June 2024, the campaign, which I led, had garnered enough signatures to get on that fall’s ballot. Days after the campaign crossed the signature threshold, Thao’s home was raided by the FBI—but the recall campaign continued.
In fact, SEIU 1021 gave the former mayor $50,000 to fight the recall—despite the FBI’s having already raided her home. Rank-and-file members were probably stunned by the union’s support for an unpopular mayor. Unsurprisingly, in November, Thao was recalled, with some 60 percent of voters supporting her ouster.
SEIU 1021 is not the only union complicit in the city’s failures—in fact, other unions are pushing Oakland to the brink of fiscal collapse.
In 2015, activists founded the “No Coal in Oakland” movement, hoping to keep coal out of the city. The movement, backed by at least 17 labor unions, secured support from many elected officials.
The campaign had just one problem: the city had already entered into a binding development agreement with Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT), allowing coal to be shipped through the port. When the city reversed course and used its regulatory authority to block the project, it triggered years of litigation. Oakland eventually lost the lawsuit—a defeat that may prove costly.
An OBOT sublessee, Insight Terminal Solutions, filed claims seeking damages that could reach into the hundreds of millions at a time when Oakland is already facing a structural budget deficit.
Now, as the case moves toward resolution, the consequences of those union-backed loyalty pledges are materializing. The city, already on the brink of bankruptcy, could face at least $230 million in potential liability, with total exposure possibly exceeding $600 million.
Oakland workers are increasingly fed up with their leaders’ hard-left turn. According to my analysis, 503 of SEIU 1021’s 2,031 listed members are no longer paying dues. Other California unions show similar trends: 26 percent of workers represented by SEIU Local 99 in the Los Angeles Unified School District have stopped paying union dues as of 2024, and nearly 48 percent of the roughly 100,000 employees covered by SEIU Local 1000 have left or refused membership.
By prioritizing left-wing ideology over workers’ interests, California unions have left many rank-and-file members feeling alienated, disempowered, and frustrated with leadership that appears more focused on ideological campaigns than on workplace representation.
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If California’s labor movement hopes to regain the trust of the working class, it must return to its original mission: representing workers. Until then, the state will continue to illustrate what happens when a movement built to balance power instead cozies up to it.
Seneca Scott is a political strategist, writer, and organizer based in Oakland and Nashville.
