SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

by Don Loos


SEIU’s New Lavender Lady Labor Boss

Politico’s Ben Smith was first to publish that Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger would not be the Purple Union’s  new union boss, he created a shock heard round the world; well at least, at SEIU’s Dupont Circle Headquarters. The breaking news was that Executive Vice President (EVP) Mary Kay Henry (MKH) would become the abruptly resigned Andy Stern’s replacement. Some claimed that this indicated an SEIU shake-up; actually it is merely an SEIU insiders’ game of musical chairs that will result in little change.

Don’t let the cheery atmosphere surrounding her anointment ease concerns about her nor the SEIU and its agenda; because for her, ObamaCare and its potential for 21.1 million forced unionism conscripts are just the beginning steps for SEIU’s steady march towards domination of U.S. labor markets.

Mary Kay Henry’s intentions to further radicalize the labor movement and the American economy are clearer than Stern’s vision.  With the hundreds of millions of union dues and fees flowing into SEIU’s treasury, she has the financial fuel needed to fund her ambitious desires.

SEIU’s Growth by Forced Unionism Fiats

Under Stern direction, SEIU had focused on the takeover of the healthcare industry through forced unionism obtained primarily through government fiats or from intimidated and cowed employers signing away worker freedoms to keep “labor peace.”  SEIU’s purple machine is unlikely to change their top-down intimidation operation with  Henry running the show.

Mary Kay Henry the Queen of ‘SEIU Grassroots’

Despite the New York Times headline: “Grass-Roots Choice Leads Race for Top Union Post;” SEIU is not a grassroots friendly organization. Its growth cannot be attributed to grassroots.

Mary Kay Henry has been credited with most of SEIU’s membership growth for more than a decade; however, that growth did not come from the grassroots; it was top down.

From 1996-2007, SEIU claimed 900,000 “new members” and Mary Kay Henry’s healthcare division provided almost all its growth.. Perhaps, this earned her the recent press accolades referring to her as a “grassroots” organizer, etc…

But, looking at the underlying sources of SEIU “membership” growth provides an excellent picture of how SEIU organizes – and more proof that SEIU and MKH are in reality antithetical to the customary meaning of grassroots:

  • Nearly 200,000 of SEIU’s 900,000 new members came through a 1998 merger with an existing union’s membership, an old New York hospital union Local 1199
  • Another 200,000 SEIU counted as new recruits are not members, but were actually federally forced agency fee payers to SEIU
  • SEIU included 35,000 “members” who were actually retirees
  • Almost 500,000 of these “new members” are home care, home childcare and similar quasi-public workers previously treated as independent contractors.[ii]

FYI, This homecare worker forced-unionism scheme was the brain child of ACORN Founder Wade Rathke and others who worked closely with SEIU lawyer, now National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) board member, Craig Becker.

SEIU’s primary method of membership growth is being challenged by several homecare worker victims and their attorneys from The National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation.  Hundreds of thousands of non-state employees who were forced into labor unions by gubernatorial and legislative fiats may soon regain their freedom if Foundation attorneys prevail.

Continued Centralized Power and Control

In 2006, Mary Kay Henry laid her plan on the table:

More central power is needed, said Henry. “We believe the American labor movement needs to move beyond voluntarism [joining voluntarily?] … SEIU aims to increase the union rate of health care workers from its current 20 percent to 50 percent.[iii]

SEIU’s game plan is simple and reminiscent of the 1950s: create the allusion that it has the power to subjugate employers by region and couple it with SEIU’s willingness to ignore election rules to intimidate and control almost every elected and appointed Democrat in the United States.  If the plan works, SEIU organizations gain control of workers in an entire region of the country.

After creating mega-locals, SEIU begins to sign-up smaller workplaces and move these units into the appropriate mega-local conflating contracts into its master contract for the region.

In the end, SEIU’s mega-local contract spans across numerous states and worksites making it virtually impossible for individual workers to mount a successful decertification or deauthorization NLRB election.

Political $$$ Translates into Forced Unionism and SEIU Growth

SEIU political campaign expenditures on behalf of politicians and its willingness to use political intimidation are largely responsible for those 500,000 new SEIU forced dues paying clients in the home health care field.

After creating subservient elected officials from the state houses to the White House, SEIU follows up with to-do lists like the illegitimate forcing of a half-a-million homecare workers to pay fees to SEIU with the stroke of a pen in some cases.

Former Illinois State Senator and now-President Barack Obama is one such politician that is obligated to SEIU.  In his book, The Audacity, Obama proudly boasts of his SEIU obligation. Read Obama’s own words:

“The Leaders of several of the largest service workers unions the Illinois Federation of Teachers, SEIU, AFSCME, UNITE-HERE chose to endorse me [for U.S. Senate] over Hines … so I owe those unions. When their leaders call, I do my best to call them back right away. I don’t consider this corrupting in anyway.  I don’t mind feeling obligated toward a bunch of home healthcare workers’ [union bosses].”

Mary Kay Henry Andrew Stern

As SEIU President, Mary Kay Henry will no doubt enjoy the same political access afforded the old boss Andy Stern.  Mary Kay Henry has been playing the political game of forced unionism for decades, and she will continue to use SEIU’s political incentives and disincentives. Stern referred to this as the “power of persuasion” and the “persuasion of power.”

Don’t let the new shade of lavender and laces fool you; Henry is as tough as any other Big Labor boss.  She has played major roles in expanding forced unionization and she will continue, unless politicians, taxpayers, and the very workers that Henry claims to represent continue to pushback against SEIU’s extreme agenda against individual workers and their rights.

[ii] Moberg, David. “State of the Union: SEIU Faces Dissent In the Ranks.” In These Times. April 24, 2008

[iii] Feuerherd, Joe. “Split poses dilemma for labor’s allies.” National Catholic Reporter. 12 Aug. 2005: 11. eLibrary. Web. 04 May. 2010.


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Posted Jun 9th 2010 at 11:25 am in Big Labor | 44 Comments