SEIU proves itself (as the 1199 song declares) a warrior in successfully resisting Governor Schwarzenegger's gambit to cut home health aides's wages: ...the union has turned the proposed cut, which would have represented one-tenth of 1 percent of the state's $103 billion budget, into a show of its growing strength. Using TV ads, Capitol rallies and nonstop lobbying of Democratic lawmakers, they turned the cuts into one of the few major obstacles between the Republican governor and the Democrats who control the Legislature. As both sides push to beat a June 30 budget deadline, SEIU appears to have won. And if their victory stands, labor analysts and legislators said, it will reinforce the growing influence of the 1.6 million-member union rooted in organizing service employees. It could also put SEIU on a collision course with Schwarzenegger, who shares few interests with the union. ..."Our interests are getting people out of poverty," said Tyrone Freeman, general president of SEIU Local 434B and chairman of the union's home care workers lobby. "We would work with anyone politician that believes in those goals." Home care workers have become a growth industry for the union, as it has organized the work force dominated by black and Hispanic women who provide a variety of domestic services to the disabled or the elderly. Their pay comes from a mix of federal, state and local dollars. Although allowed to organize for years, the workers and unions gained more clout in 1999, when they pushed for changes in California law to mandate the state to pay more of the workers' wages. The new law sparked a rush to organize; in what was the nation's largest union election since World War II, 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles County voted to join SEIU in 1999.