Nation's Largest and Fastest Growing Union to Continue Political Work With Health Care as Top Priority; Before Ballots Are Counted Health Care TV Ad Launches Campaign.

WASHINGTON -- The organization that mounted the nation's largest grassroots effort in the 2004 presidential elections (see fact sheet below), the 1.7-million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is not waiting for the ballots to be counted to turn its attention to the next task at hand: winning quality, affordable health care.

SEIU's more than 50,000 member volunteers and 2,017 full-time member campaign workers ("Heroes") will now help lead a national effort to ensure the next Administration and Congress make health care their top priority.

Tonight, thousands of SEIU members will begin to distribute 1 million stickers to signal their support for the health care campaign being launched this evening with a new television ad on CNN.

SEIU's health care ad will air on CNN this evening during prime time election coverage in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and run nationally on Nov. 3, calling on leaders from both parties to work together to address the nation's health care crisis.

"What SEIU members and allies have done in this election cycle has forever changed the face of political organizing," said SEIU President Andy Stern. "Electing John Kerry is just the first step. The next is to help him overcome special interests to make sure every American has access to quality, affordable health care they can count on."

In addition to tonight's launch activities, SEIU will be placing billboards in key congressional districts beginning in December. The focus of these ads will be to remind elected officials that the top economic concern among all voters is health care and that they will be held accountable on the issue of health care reform. Elected officials will also be asked to sign a pledge of support for quality, affordable health care for every man, woman and child.

The SEIU campaign, Americans for Health Care (AHC), helped make health care a top campaign issue throughout the primary season. AHC ads featured nurses calling on the candidates to offer comprehensive health care plans. The group also identified over 300,000 "health care voters" who are casting ballots today.

Click here to view SEIU's Health Care TV ad that will appear tonight and tomorrow on CNN.

http://progressive.playstream.com/seiudigital/progressive/ campaign/ahc/healthcare_ad.mpeg (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.) Or view it at www.seiu.org.

More facts on SEIU's role in bringing home a victory for working families follows this release...

Anatomy of an Election Strategy:
              The Facts on SEIU's Role in Bringing Home a
                Victory for America's Working Families

Nation's Fastest Growing Union Built Largest Mobilization by Any
Single Organization in the History of American Politics

The 1.7 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
has played a critical role in shaping the outcome of the presidential
election and several important races in three key ways:

    1)  applying organizing know-how to help set up the strategy and
        structure for a whole range of progressive coalitions.

    2)  providing an unprecedented level of people power, including
        more than 2,000 members working full-time for months in
        battleground states, along with more than 50,000 member
        volunteers.

    3)  making the largest investment by any single organization in
        the history of American politics - a total of $65 million.

A closer look at the know-how, people-power and money utilized in
SEIU's Fight for the Future campaign:

    --  Creating strategic grassroots organizations. SEIU's leadership
        helped build bold new organizations to coordinate and fund
        sophisticated grassroots efforts. President Andy Stern and
        other SEIU leaders founded and/or serve on the boards of the
        largest and most progressive community-based voter
        mobilization groups like ACT, America Votes, Mi Familia Vota,
        American Families United, and the New American Opportunity
        Campaign.

    --  The largest contributor. SEIU is the largest financial
        contributor to ACT ($26 million), the AFL-CIO's Labor 2004,
        and America Votes ($900,000). SEIU tripled the amount spent in
        2000 ($65 million in 2004) to make significant donations as
        well as "in-kind contributions" - SEIU members and staff - to
        groups like Voting is Power, Mi Familia Vota, ACT and its
        Caribbean Power Vote, and America Votes, resulting in nearly
        4.5 million new registrants. SEIU gave $1 million to the DNC
        and has made large donations to groups that share our goals,
        like Rock the Vote and the New Democratic Network.

    --  Largest commitment of people power. Accounting for a pre-GOTV
        total of more than 6 million voter contacts in the
        battlegrounds, SEIU recruited more than 2,750 members and
        staff willing to take a leave from their jobs to do full-time
        political work with organizations like ACT, allowing the union
        to reach beyond the labor movement for the first time to
        conduct real voter contact with a wider universe of workers.
        Roughly 40 percent of SEIU's full-time activists, or "Heroes"
        don't live in the battlegrounds, so they packed their bags -
        nearly 1,000 of them as early as April and July - and
        temporarily moved to 16 key states. SEIU rallied another
        50,000 "weekend warriors" who are now ratcheting up their GOTV
        efforts for a grand total of 19 million phone calls and 10
        million doors knocked nationwide.

    --  Independent TV and radio expenditures. SEIU spent just over $3
        million on federal independent expenditure TV and radio ads,
        including $1.4 million for three TV and six radio spots in
        Wisconsin on health care, and $500,000 for three
        Spanish-language TV ads in Florida's three largest markets
        running since mid-October through Nov. 2. Several other
        significant radio and TV buys hit the airwaves in ME, MO, NC,
        and AR. In addition, SEIU put $ 2.6 million into non-federal
        independent expenditures and initiative campaigns in CA, ME,
        AZ, FL, and NV and $9 million in direct contributions to
        worker-friendly candidates, campaigns and organizations.

    --  Worker communication and technology. 500,000 SEIU members,
        many of them low-wage workers who earn less than $30,000 a
        year, have voluntarily contributed an overall total of $16
        million towards the union's political action fund that helped
        pay for SEIU's nurses, janitors, security officers, public
        employees in battleground states to receive over 4 million
        pieces of direct mail, designed to share with union households
        John Kerry's vision for the country. Four purple mobile action
        centers traveled around the country to bring a unique
        communications technology to SEIU members, allowing them to
        complete millions of phone calls to voters nationwide.

    --  Early focus on health care. The SEIU-led Americans for Health
        Care helped make health care a top campaign issue throughout
        the primary season with billboards and TV spots featuring Iowa
        and New Hampshire nurses calling on the candidates to offer
        comprehensive health care plans. The group has also identified
        over 300,000 "health care voters" - Americans who have signed
        pledges to hold politicians accountable on the issue at the
        polls.

    --  Health care campaign continues. SEIU members aren't waiting
        for the ballots to be counted to spearhead a national effort
        to make sure quality, affordable health care is the number one
        priority for the next Administration and Congress: On Election
        Night, thousands of SEIU members will begin to distribute 1
        million stickers that read "Quality, Affordable Health Care:
        Job 1 in 2005."

Click here to view a flash presentation highlighting SEIU's
organizational, monetary contributions and resource allocations for
Election 2004.

http://easylink.playstream.com/seiudigital/progressive/campaign/ahc/
seiu_largest_broadband.wvx (Due to its length, this URL may need
to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove
the extra space if one exists.) Or view it at www.seiu.org.

With 1.7 million members, SEIU is the largest and fastest growing
union in the AFL-CIO, representing nurses, janitors, security officers
and public employees, among others. SEIU is the nation's largest union
of health care workers, and represents more immigrants than any other
union. www.seiu.org