Sacramento, CA – SEIU members in California, more than 700,000 strong, today applauded outgoing President Mary Kay Henry and celebrated the historic worker victories she advanced on behalf of two million workers nationwide. Henry announced this morning that she will not seek another term as President at the union’s May convention.
David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW) issued the following statement:
“SEIU members in California honor and celebrate Mary Kay Henry’s visionary leadership of our union. A tireless strategist and advocate for all workers, Mary Kay pushed us all to build a radically more inclusive movement. Here in California, that vision resulted in the establishment of a Fast Food Council that gives over half a million low-paid, largely Latina workers a real voice in setting work conditions in an industry long plagued by exploitation and abuse. The resurgence of support for unions we see across the nation today is in large part due to Mary Kay’s vision and decades of strategic organizing and campaigning.
“Mary Kay mobilized our union to defend the Affordable Care Act, which has benefited millions of Americans and saved thousands of lives, transforming healthcare in our nation and putting us on a solid path to universal healthcare.
“Throughout her tenure as President, Mary Kay Henry has been an unparalleled champion for caregivers, who are a growing part of our economy and essential to our nation’s future. In her dedication to dismantling the Jim Crow-era exclusion of in-home caregivers and child care providers from labor laws, Mary Kay has helped Brown and Black women in particular forge a pathway out of poverty and into leadership in our labor movement. In California, Mary Kay championed the cause of 40,000 child care workers who now have their own union and a powerful voice in shaping a system vital to our economy and our children’s future. As SEIU members embrace new leadership, Mary Kay’s decades of inspired leadership will carry forward in the voices of the workers whose lives she touched. She will leave a stronger, more vital, and more inclusive worker movement to the next generation of labor leaders, a legacy that benefits all people in this country.”
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SEIU local unions in California are made up of over 700,000 nurses, healthcare workers, janitors, social workers, security officers, in-home caregivers, school and university employees, court workers, and city, county and state employees.
