As the City of Los Angeles faces an unprecedented budget crisis, nearly 500 city engineers have voted to unite in SEIU 721 to have a stronger voice at work and unite with the 22,000 other City employees in the Coalition of LA City Unions, of which SEIU 721 is a member. The LA City Council also voted on Friday by a vote of 14-0 to approve a landmark agreement between the City and the Coalition of LA City Unions that will avert layoffs and furloughs and prevent major service reductions.

Another group of 1,500 City of Los Angeles professional employees will have the choice to vote for SEIU in a run-off election, to be scheduled at a later date. Read more here or visit www.UnitedforLA.org.

By overwhelming margins, California voters rejected the false solutions on the special election ballot in the May 19th statewide election, sending Gov. Schwarzenegger and the Legislature back to the drawing board. SEIU members helped defeat several propositions that would have hobbled the state's public services with devastating cuts to community-based mental health services, health care, education and child welfare. Voters rejected a permanent cap on public service spending by a margin of two to one.

What was on the ballot: Prop. 1A put caps on funding for public services, using low-funded crisis years as the baseline, and also greatly enhanced the Governor's power to make mid-year budget cuts to pretty much any department without having to ask the Legislature. SEIU also opposed Prop. 1D and 1E, which raided children's health and mental health funds. By defeating Proposition 1E in particular, union members helped prevent more than $460 million in cuts to vital mental health services--and protect the successful Mental Health Services Act approved by California voters five years ago.

SEIU members in California joined with clients, families, workers, advocates, and community leaders in the effort to defeat Prop. 1A , 1D and 1E, making phone calls to thousands of SEIU members, participating in the May 13 rallies in downtown Los Angeles and outreach to members at their worksites and online. And their hard work paid off by a wide margin: 65.9 percent of voters said "no" to Prop. 1A, 65.8 percent rejected Proposition 1D and 66.4 percent voted "no" on Proposition 1E. Read more about the election results in the San Francisco Chronicle.

On March 19, 2009 at Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in LA, Robin Lewis of SEIU Local 721 told President Obama directly how important health care reform is for her son, Kolin, when the President looked for her after his LA town hall.

"He found me after and he came up to me and said 'Now what was your question. I need to know your question,'" Lewis said.

Lewis told him, "I need your help. My son has a cancerous brain tumor and I need some help. The American people need help. We need to reform health care and I want to help you do it." Lewis's 20-year-old son, Kolin, needs regular medical attention as he continues to recover from a brain tumor.

Although Robin Lewis receives family health benefits through her job with the LA County Dept. of Children and Family Services, like hundreds of thousands of young Californians, her son lost his coverage under her plan when he turned 18. The high risk of her son's cancer reoccurring require that he receive continual medical care and MRI's every year--all of which are extremely costly.

Despite a memory disability and enduring months of physical therapy to regain the use of his left side, relearn to walk and dress himself and many other basic functions, Kolin graduated from high school and is now taking classes at Fullerton Junior College each semester. He is currently receiving health coverage through a patchwork of Medi-Cal and other benefits, but he'll lose this coverage when he turns 21. Paying for private insurance for Konlin will cost more than one-third of Lewis' income, and without health care reform she's not sure how they'll get by.

After the town hall, Lewis says "the president got my information and he told me he would help me and I would be in his prayers and that we would fix health insurance."

"It's heartbreaking to not be able to take care of your child's health," said Lewis. "We need to have affordable health care in this country and it shouldn't be dependent on your job or age. I have hope President Obama will keep health care a priority."