SEIU sales tax advocacy undercuts union's egalitarian rhetoric
The band ‘Hypocrisy’ performing at the Getaway Rock Festival 2013, Patrick Jenkinson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
While one Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local waxes eloquent about the evils of wealth inequality, its sister locals are pushing regressive sales tax measures in multiple counties. The unifying principle is not egalitarianism but more dues revenue for the union. Marc Joffe of Contra Costa Taxpayers' explores.
The Billionaire Tax Act championed by SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) would increase social service funding by demanding more of those who can most afford it. As the measure states: "It is both necessary and equitable to ask those who have benefited most from California's resources to contribute proportionately to support health care, education, and nutrition in California through a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth."
SEIU-UHW leveraged the work of UC Berkeley inequality researchers to devise and explain the tax measure. An expert analysis of the wealth tax co-authored by Berkeley’s Emmanuel Saez noted: “The 2026 Billionaire Tax uses funds from households that gained the most from the recent federal changes in order to protect those who were hurt the most”.
Yet other SEIU locals are pursuing county sales taxes even though they consume a larger share of a lower-income family's earnings compared to wealthier households. This imbalance occurs because lower-income individuals must spend a large proportion of their paychecks on immediate, taxable necessities, whereas higher-income earners have the financial flexibility to save or invest most of their wealth, thereby avoiding consumption taxes.
The degree of this regressivity is quantified in the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s (ITEP) “Who Pays?” report, which found that the poorest taxpayers pay an average of 7% of their income toward sales taxes, while the wealthiest pay only 1%.
Last November, SEIU Local 2015 championed Santa Clara County’s Measure A, imposing a 0.625% sales tax countywide. Although the tax is for general purposes, its stated purpose is to offset the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will slow the growth of federal Medi-Cal funding. SEIU Local 2015 was an early advocate, but the campaign’s single largest donor was SEIU 521—the union representing 72,000 county and nonprofit workers across the Bay Area and Central Valley—which contributed $300,000, more than any other organization.
The reason is straightforward: SEIU 521 members work directly for Santa Clara County. A larger county revenue base translates into their employer’s budget and, ultimately, into wages and job security for the union’s members.
On February 10, supervisors in both Los Angeles County and Contra Costa County voted to place similar healthcare-focused sales tax measures on the June ballot. SEIU Local 2015 also supports these measures.
So one SEIU local seeks Medi-Cal funding from the wealthiest, while others seek the same funding by taxing the poorest. If both the state and county measures pass this year, will taxpayers get a rebate, or will the union reap the windfall?
SEIU and its allies might respond that the inconsistency in its revenue-seeking approaches is the result of independent locals acting on their own. But this ignores the fact that SEIU is a highly integrated organization: all California locals pay per capita taxes to the state and national headquarters, operate under shared national governance, and coordinate political priorities through the SEIU California State Council.
The picture that emerges is not of autonomous organizations that happen to take inconsistent positions. It is of a single institution pursuing more public revenue for the programs that employ its members—by whatever means the political environment will bear in each jurisdiction. While the threatened loss of healthcare benefits understandably causes a compassionate response, voters should also consider the special interests that benefit from the tax hikes they may be voting on this year. SEIU should be held to account before voters continue to fill its coffers.
Marc Joffe is President of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association and a Visiting Fellow at the California Policy Center.
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