Labor Leader Mary Kay Henry: Building The Most Inclusive, Racially Diverse, Female Dominated Middle Class the Nation Has Ever Seen

If you've been paying attention, you've heard how unionization efforts are popping up all over the country, from Starbucks, Amazon and Apple; to airports, nursing homes and college campuses. Indeed, in numbers not seen in generations, American workers are fighting for higher wages, better benefits and, yes, a little more dignity on the job. This week, Abby talks about what all this portends with Mary Kay Henry, president of the nation’s second largest union, the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU currently represents about 2 million workers, including the custodians profiled in Abby’s documentary about economic inequality, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.

Mary Kay tells Abby that The SEIU is committed to eliminating the kind of poverty wages that have come to define service work, especially the jobs that predominantly go to women and minorities, jobs like child care and home health assistance. Mary Kay has been at this for a long time. She started organizing in 1980, just around the time former President Ronald Reagan advanced policies that crippled union power. What kept her going during those dark years, Mary Kay  says was “the incredible courage of individual people who were willing to risk their jobs, to make things better for themselves, their families, and their coworkers.” 

The fight is far from over. Despite some well-publicized victories for labor in recent years, and regardless of talk of how frontline workers were “essential” during the pandemic, Mary Kay tells Abby that corporate America is spending millions on union busting campaigns, vociferously fighting workers’ efforts to have a place at the bargaining table. These corporate campaigns are unacceptable, she says, and one of her goals is to change the public’s attitude toward the employers who keep unions out. Just like the Me Too Movement made sexual harassment unacceptable, Mary Kay declares: “we want to make it unacceptable to have anti-union behavior.”

Follow Mary Kay Henry, the SEIU, and the Fight for 15 on Twitter: @MaryKayHenry, @SEIU, @fightfor15

EPISODE LINKS:
FightFor15
The incredible decline of American unions, in one animated map (The Washington Post)
The New Deal devalued home care workers. Advocates hope new legislation can undo that. (The 19th)
‘Working People Want Real Change’: A Union Chief Sounds Off on the Crisis (NY Times)
Sectoral Bargaining: What It Is, How It Works, Pro and Con Debate (Investopedia)
Thinking Sectorally (The American Prospect)
Judge grants hold on California fast-food worker law AB 257 (Los Angeles Times)