California’s healthcare industrial complex is booming. Guess who’s paying?

By Marc Joffe
02/12/2026
California’s hospitals recorded $11.3 billion in total net income in 2024 — 10% above pre-pandemic levels. The average hospital CEO in the state earns roughly $920,000 a year. And the largest union representing healthcare workers collected $114.5 million in dues in 2024 alone, according to its federal LM-2 filing — spending just 16 cents of...

TAGS: healthcare, seiu

The Union that May Have Broken California

By Marc Joffe
01/11/2026
2026 began with revelations that numerous billionaires owning upwards of $1 trillion in assets had cut ties with California just before the ball dropped on January 1. These well-heeled folks did not suddenly get tired of California’s weather, scenery, culture, or social scene. Instead, they were avoiding a potential wealth tax hatched by a group...

TAGS: California taxes, seiu

What to Do with California’s Billionaire Tax Proceeds

By Marc Joffe
01/07/2026
A health-care union’s ‘one-time fix’ for federal Medicaid cuts could easily become permanent. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest labor unions in the country, has launched an experiment in California to determine whether it can wring a large amount of revenue from the state’s billionaires. Its idea is a one-time retroactive...

TAGS: California state budget, California taxes, Medi-Cal, seiu

The Public-Sector Union Behind L.A. Immigration Agitation

By Will Swaim
06/19/2025
SEIU California expands its membership and its coffers by trying to bring open borders. The week’s riots in Los Angeles kicked off with the June 6 arrest of David Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union’s California chapter. You might expect a union boss to favor immigration enforcement in the name of protecting his members’...

TAGS: government unions, seiu

SEIU Faces Steep Declines in Membership and Revenue

By Jackson Reese
03/31/2024
SEIU Local 99’s massive strike in LA Unified ended with union leaders bragging that the strike showcased the union’s strength. But the reality is more stark for the union: SEIU is facing steep declines in membership and revenue, and the strike appears more like an act of desperation. According to internal LAUSD documents, the union...

TAGS: California government unions, California public sector unions, public employee unions, seiu, seiu local 1000

The Butler Did It

By Chris LaBella
10/03/2023
In appointing Laphonza Butler to take Dianne Feinstein’s still-warm U.S. Senate seat, Gov. Gavin Newsom has picked his twin, someone of Cirque-du-Soleil-level flexible morality and connections to wealthy donors on all sides of most issues. In that regard, at least, she’s a perfect representative of California politics. She is “simply the best person that I...

TAGS: California, Feinstein, Laphonza Butler, seiu, union, Unions

AB 421: SEIU’s Bid to Gut California’s 112-year-old Referendum and Initiative Laws

By Will Swaim
03/31/2023
In the devil’s workshop we call the state legislature, government union leaders are hard at work — destroying another of California’s democratic institutions. Fresh off the shutdown of Los Angeles Unified schools and the overthrow of their own elected president — and facing steep declines in membership and revenue — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) activists are...

TAGS: AB 421, California Legislature, Referendum, seiu, seiu local 1000

Unions’ Strike Hurts L.A. Students and Families

By California Policy Center
03/20/2023
Two employee unions in Los Angeles Unified are poised to strike this week, shutting down schools and leaving many parents angry that students are — once again — being used as leverage by the unions in contract negotiations. The unions are demanding huge pay raises despite financial reports showing LAUSD is already upside down $16.4...

TAGS: Los Angeles Unfied School District, seiu, teacher strike, teachers strike, UTLA

SEIU’s dirty little secrets

By Jackson Reese
10/22/2021
California’s largest union has two names it doesn’t want members to know about. The first is Alma Hernandez. The second is Mark Janus. Hernandez is the now-former top boss at California’s largest labor union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In a truly let-them-eat-cake-moment, she’s been charged on multiple counts of embezzlement and tax fraud...

TAGS: Janus, seiu, seiu local 1000