Union Blueprint for Service Workers in California Could Spread

One union was a particularly big winner during a California legislative session marked by some significant victories for the labor movement: the Service Employees International Union.

The union, which has 700,000 members in the Golden State from janitors to airport workers to nurses, was at the forefront of dealmaking in Sacramento over the past month, including passage of landmark measures to raise the minimum wage for fast-food and health-care workers.

Top union officials helped salvage bills that seemed dead, drawing on substantial clout in the capitol’s Democratic supermajorities and forging deals with coalitions of deep-pocketed opponents that it typically squares ...