Mary Kay Henry
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Mary Kay Henry has devoted her life to helping America's healthcare workers form unions, improve their jobs and the quality of care, and advocate for a more rational and humane health care system.
During her 25 years as an organizer and leader in the nation's largest health care union, she has played a major role in helping more than half a million health care workers join together in SEIU Healthcare, negotiate for better working and patient care conditions, and actively shape health care policy at the state and federal levels.
Since June 2004, she has served as an International Executive Vice President of SEIU, leading the union’s efforts to build a stronger voice for health care workers. More than one million health care workers nationwide, including registered nurses, technicians, doctors, and hospital and clinic workers are united in SEIU Healthcare.
Recognizing that today's global economy demands a new and different model of labor-management relationships, Mary Kay is leading a national effort by SEIU to build new kinds of partnerships with hospital employers-partnerships that will improve the quality of patient care, strengthen the hospital's competitive performance, and give workers a voice in decisions that affect care and working conditions.
Her vision and leadership has helped pave the way to groundbreaking agreements between SEIU and hospital chains such as Catholic Healthcare West, Tenet, and HCA, and to the national Labor-Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest HMO. In the Midwest, a strategic alliance between SEIU and Allina Hospitals and Clinics in Minnesota is centered on improving the quality of patient care, with caregivers now working side by side with management to solve problems.
An active champion of health care reform, Mary Kay envisions a U.S. health care system that provides universal coverage and gives front-line caregivers a real voice in patient care. She is a member of the executive board of Families USA, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans. She is also a labor adviser to and member of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops' Subcommittee on Catholic Health Care.
Her faith and values as a practicing Roman Catholic led her to pursue union organizing as a vocation. She began working with SEIU in 1979 and rose to become a leader and chief health care strategist and was elected to the International Executive Board in 1996.
Mary Kay is active in the fight for immigration reform and gay and lesbian rights. She is a founding member of SEIU's gay and lesbian Lavender Caucus. She and her partner, Paula Macchello, have been together for 20 years.
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