What Does It Mean to Be a Labor Leader for This Moment?

Fifteen dollars an hour went from “laughable to viable,” according to The New York Times, and in its first 10 years, the movement won $150 billion in raises for 26 million workers, a report from the National Employment Law Project shows.

The Fight for $15 and a Union is a crowning achievement for Henry, who has passed along the reins to lifelong organizer and the first Black woman president of SEIU, April Verrett. But her big vision, fierce determination, humility, skilled coalition building, and relentless focus on the needs, power and dignity of workers have produced many lessons over her 14-year-tenure that the labor movement and progressives should build on moving forward.

Practical Audacity

Sometimes social movements launch bold demands for change, with the goal of being bold. And there’s a role for that—to change the narrative or create the space in the public imagination for more. But often bold demands are simply bold demands, without a practical strategy to achieve real change. The Fight for $15 and Mary Kay Henry’s leadership of the effort went far deeper than the audacious demand; it anchored in practical theories for how progress could be made, an investment in those strategies and capacities, and the willingness to experiment and learn along the way.

Uncommon Wisdom 

The labor movement, like any movement or subculture, holds conventional wisdom that defines the terms of the conversation. Labor institutions, like other institutions, are not predisposed toward change. And there are stories that reinforce the status quo—stories about what kinds of workers can and should be organized. Or who is considered a worker and what that means for the role of unions. Or how workers should be organized—shop by shop, not by sector. From supporting gig worker organizing, to seeding a partnership with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, to championing sectoral strategies for raising wages and improving standards—and helping Starbucks workers chart their path to a union—Mary Kay Henry never allowed herself or her union to be constrained by common wisdom when it came to what workers need and deserve.

And she understood that workers can’t win the changes they need without deep partnerships with community organizations. She forged authentic rather than transactional ties with leaders of community organizing groups and networks, based on trust, shared interests and vision.

A Leader for All Workers

Unions are democratic organizations, where dues-paying members elect the leadership they want to represent them. Those leaders are expected to negotiate on their behalf, and represent their interests at the bargaining table and at every table where decisions are made. But in the generations since our model for collective bargaining was born, the world has changed dramatically. Attacks on unions and the right to organize, combined with economic trends that have diminished workforces with high union density and made unionization more difficult have catalyzed a decline in union membership in recent decades. And working people across the economy have suffered as a result. The era under Mary Kay’s leadership has been pivotal—do or die. And the question has been: What does it mean to be a labor leader for this moment?

While Mary Kay never veered from fiercely championing the economic interests of her members, she led for the multiracial working majority in America, with a deep commitment to the lowest-wage earners—the most insecure among us. She led her union to deepen and broaden its commitment to racial justice, while supporting organizing in white working-class communities. She showed up for citizenship for undocumented workers and their families, while walking alongside the Poor People’s Campaign in its call for a moral movement to end poverty in America. She answered the call to leadership by modeling leadership for a struggling majority, for this moment of economic insecurity and extreme inequality. All while paving the way for April Verrett and the next generation of leaders in her union to step powerfully into their leadership.

Mary Kay Henry will be the first to tell you that leadership is not a singular proposition. She will tell you that everything she has accomplished has been enabled by the courage and commitment of the members of SEIU, the brilliance of the leaders they have elected, and the staff who organize and serve union members at every level. And yet, she is singular in what she has contributed as a leader, and working people in America are better off for it.