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Mary Kay Henry
Mary Kay Henry (born 1958) is an American labor union activist who was International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from May 8, 2010 until her retirement on May 20, 2024. She was the first woman to lead the union. While serving with the union in California, she helped pioneer SEIU's use of card check agreements, non-traditional collective bargaining agreements, comprehensive campaigns, and system-wide health care organizing strategies. Henry was included on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Henry was born in 1958 in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Her father was a salesman and her mother was a teacher, and both were devout Catholics.
Henry credits her faith with giving her an interest in social justice issues. The oldest girl in a family of 10 children, she attended Marian High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She gained a favorable impression of labor unions from hearing and reading about the work of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the heavily unionized automotive industry. She worked in a local hospital while in high school to earn money.
In college, Henry initially wanted to become an urban planner. She continued to work in hospitals as an undergraduate student, and also as a medical assistant for the American Red Cross. She earned her bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in 1979, majoring in urban planning and labor relations. While in college, she was a volunteer lobbyist for a grassroots group, and worked alongside union lobbyists on various issues.
Her first job out of college was with the American Foreign Service distributing food stamps to the needy. When a member from the United Auto Workers suggested that the way to end hunger was to enable people to obtain well-paying jobs, Henry began considering union organizing. Henry joined SEIU as a researcher in 1980. Her experiences as a health care worker prompted her to work for a union that was involved in health care organizing. She joined SEIU because it was one of the few unions hiring women as organizers at the time. During the 1980s, Henry held 18 jobs within the SEIU in California. She served as the San Francisco-area strike coordinator during a 1986 strike by more than 9,000 clerks, certified nursing assistants, and technicians against 14 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and health care facilities throughout California. She helped pioneer SEIU's use of card check agreements [clarification needed], non-traditional collective bargaining agreements, and system-wide health care organizing strategy. In 1993, she was named director of the 475,000-member health care division of SEIU.
Henry was elected to SEIU's executive board in December 1995 after President John Sweeney resigned after his election as President of the AFL-CIO. SEIU President Andrew Stern named Henry his assistant for organizing in 1996. Henry was named assistant to then-SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina in 1998. She remained active in the union's health care organizing, however, representing SEIU in its talks in 1999 to secure a card check agreement with the Catholic Healthcare West hospital chain. More than 17,000 new members at 27 hospitals were organized under that agreement. She was also involved in SEIU's successful negotiations with Tenet Healthcare for a card check agreement.
She was named SEIU's Southern California organizing director in 2000, the international union's chief healthcare strategist in 2004, and elected an Executive Vice President of the union in 2004. Henry helped oversee what she said in 2005 was a $150 million organizing budget, which SEIU intended to use to organize more than 1 million additional nurses over the next decade. She helped negotiate a "no-raid agreement" between SEIU and the United American Nurses in 2006. In her first 25 years with SEIU, Henry played a major role in organizing drives at Beverly Enterprises, Catholic Health Care West, Tenet Healthcare, and HCA, Inc. Stern relied on her to coordinate and lead important legislative efforts. SEIU Executive Vice President Dennis Rivera took over Henry's healthcare organizing duties in early 2007.
Henry and Medina helped plan the breakup of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (UHW-West), a 140,000-member SEIU local, and force half its membership into a new statewide local which SEIU claimed would have enhanced collective bargaining and lobbying power. UHW-West leaders balked at the plan, SEIU established a trusteeship over UHW-West, UHW-West leaders challenged the trusteeship and established an independent union (the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or NUHW), and the two unions began fighting over who would represent more than 100,000 employees in 350 bargaining units. Henry expressed strong anger at the move to create an independent union.
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Mary Kay Henry
Mary Kay Henry (born 1958) is an American labor union activist who was International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from May 8, 2010 until her retirement on May 20, 2024. She was the first woman to lead the union. While serving with the union in California, she helped pioneer SEIU's use of card check agreements, non-traditional collective bargaining agreements, comprehensive campaigns, and system-wide health care organizing strategies. Henry was included on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Henry was born in 1958 in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Her father was a salesman and her mother was a teacher, and both were devout Catholics.
Henry credits her faith with giving her an interest in social justice issues. The oldest girl in a family of 10 children, she attended Marian High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She gained a favorable impression of labor unions from hearing and reading about the work of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the heavily unionized automotive industry. She worked in a local hospital while in high school to earn money.
In college, Henry initially wanted to become an urban planner. She continued to work in hospitals as an undergraduate student, and also as a medical assistant for the American Red Cross. She earned her bachelor's degree from Michigan State University in 1979, majoring in urban planning and labor relations. While in college, she was a volunteer lobbyist for a grassroots group, and worked alongside union lobbyists on various issues.
Her first job out of college was with the American Foreign Service distributing food stamps to the needy. When a member from the United Auto Workers suggested that the way to end hunger was to enable people to obtain well-paying jobs, Henry began considering union organizing. Henry joined SEIU as a researcher in 1980. Her experiences as a health care worker prompted her to work for a union that was involved in health care organizing. She joined SEIU because it was one of the few unions hiring women as organizers at the time. During the 1980s, Henry held 18 jobs within the SEIU in California. She served as the San Francisco-area strike coordinator during a 1986 strike by more than 9,000 clerks, certified nursing assistants, and technicians against 14 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and health care facilities throughout California. She helped pioneer SEIU's use of card check agreements [clarification needed], non-traditional collective bargaining agreements, and system-wide health care organizing strategy. In 1993, she was named director of the 475,000-member health care division of SEIU.
Henry was elected to SEIU's executive board in December 1995 after President John Sweeney resigned after his election as President of the AFL-CIO. SEIU President Andrew Stern named Henry his assistant for organizing in 1996. Henry was named assistant to then-SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina in 1998. She remained active in the union's health care organizing, however, representing SEIU in its talks in 1999 to secure a card check agreement with the Catholic Healthcare West hospital chain. More than 17,000 new members at 27 hospitals were organized under that agreement. She was also involved in SEIU's successful negotiations with Tenet Healthcare for a card check agreement.
She was named SEIU's Southern California organizing director in 2000, the international union's chief healthcare strategist in 2004, and elected an Executive Vice President of the union in 2004. Henry helped oversee what she said in 2005 was a $150 million organizing budget, which SEIU intended to use to organize more than 1 million additional nurses over the next decade. She helped negotiate a "no-raid agreement" between SEIU and the United American Nurses in 2006. In her first 25 years with SEIU, Henry played a major role in organizing drives at Beverly Enterprises, Catholic Health Care West, Tenet Healthcare, and HCA, Inc. Stern relied on her to coordinate and lead important legislative efforts. SEIU Executive Vice President Dennis Rivera took over Henry's healthcare organizing duties in early 2007.
Henry and Medina helped plan the breakup of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West (UHW-West), a 140,000-member SEIU local, and force half its membership into a new statewide local which SEIU claimed would have enhanced collective bargaining and lobbying power. UHW-West leaders balked at the plan, SEIU established a trusteeship over UHW-West, UHW-West leaders challenged the trusteeship and established an independent union (the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or NUHW), and the two unions began fighting over who would represent more than 100,000 employees in 350 bargaining units. Henry expressed strong anger at the move to create an independent union.