Labor leader Mary Kay Henry is fighting for frontline workers in a new world
IN NORMAL TIMES, MARY KAY HENRY, THE president of the second largest union in the U.S., flies around the country meeting with workers, politicians and policymakers, arguing that the nearly 2 million Americans she represents deserve more. Now, in an age of pandemic, as her members—the janitors and food-service employees and airport and home-care workers of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—are asked to put their lives on the line by going in to work, Henry is fighting for them from a downstairs apartment in San Francisco.
On a recent Wednesday, Henry, 62, sat on a chair padded with a cushion in front of a poster board featuring the SEIU logo, wearing her signature purple glasses and a deep purple blazer (purple is
