George Hardy (labor leader)
Encyclopedia
George Hardy was a Canadian-American
labor
leader who was president of the Service Employees International Union
(SEIU) from 1971 to 1980. At the time of his death, SEIU had grown to become the fifth-largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO
. Hardy was a vice president of the AFL-CIO from 1972 to 1980, and a member of its executive council. He was a former member of the Democratic National Committee
and the California Democratic State Central Committee.
, Canada
. The Hardys moved to San Francisco, California
, in the 1920s. Hardy and his family came to San Francisco from Canada working their way as migrant fruit pickers. George grew up on Linden Street in the working class
Hayes Valley
district of San Francisco. living next door to the Cheney Family. George married Norma Mitchell in San Francisco and had two children, Joan Marie Hardy and Robert Thomas Hardy. Robert was killed in a car accident in 1955 at the age of 18, returning from a high school graduation trip to Arizona. George credited Norma, her sisters, best friend Ellis Cheney and so many "anonymous" janitors for the support and collaboration which fueled his great success and the growth of BSEIU (later SEIU) on the West Coast and throughout North America.
at the time, Charles Hardy was generally considered honest and a figurehead who was not part of the mob's inner circle on the board. In 1932, George Hardy also joined Local 9, the oldest Building Service Employees International Union local in California. The year he joined, he was elected the local's business agent. During the San Francisco General Strike of 1934, Hardy helped his father to organize service workers to support the strike, leading to the closure of restaurants, movie theaters, night clubs, and office buildings during the four-day strike.
George Hardy began working as a janitor at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library
in 1935. One night, a foreman
dropped a match behind a radiator
; when Hardy missed it, he was fired. Angry at the pettiness and mistreatment, Hardy, his father and other Irish janitors formed a new local for office building janitors, Local 87. George Hardy became an organizer for the new union in 1936. Hardy worked by day, and by night (often not sleeping for several days) he organized workers into the new union. Repeatedly fired for his off-hours union work, Hardy was blacklist
ed. Under future leaders such as Herman Eimers Rex Kennedy, and Robert Parr, members of Local 87 continued to enjoy improved wages, benefits and working conditions. These victories were all won with very few strikes.
Nonetheless, within seven years Hardy had organized a majority of the city's janitors. Hardy formed a group known as the "Hayes Valley Gang"—neighborhood friends who were also blacklisted janitors and union organizers—who traveled helped organize building workers in San Francisco and then traveled to Los Angeles
to build several small locals. By 1943, Hardy had organized BSEIU locals from San Francisco to San Diego
. Hardy's efforts at organizing were helped by the international union's quick growth and increasing strength. BSEIU's national membership was almost 100,000 in 1945, and reached more than 200,000 by 1950. Hardy moved to Los Angeles in 1946, and the union's organizing efforts (strongly backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
) took off in the city under his leadership: Three locals with just 2,800 members blossomed into eight locals with more than 8,500 members. By 1950, Hardy boasted that so many workers had been organized in Los Angeles (including a third of the city's large office buildings) that the union had obtained 40 percent wage hikes in the past four years. Local 399 had 5,000 members in 1950 and 11,000 in 1960—making it the second largest local in the national BSEIU. Hardy pressed for, and the union was successful at, the transformation of part-time jobs into full-time positions. Health benefits and pension were also added to most union contracts.
Hardy also began to expand the union's base. By 1960, over a third of the members in Los Angeles worked in the public sector. The union also expanded out of office buildings, and represented workers in bowling alleys, supermarkets, hotels, apartment buildings, gymnasiums, clubs, public schools, and hospitals. Hardy expanded the union's racial and ethnic diversity as well. By 1950, half of the members in Local 399 (the largest in Los Angeles) were African American
, and 9 percent were Mexican American
. Overall, 38 percent of BSEIU members in Los Angeles were black.
Hardy also made several important innovations in union structure and operations. First, he united all BSEIU locals in the state into a new California State Council, the first statewide coordinated body in SEIU history. Second, he built an extensive communications network of bulletins, mailings, newsletters and updates (all run out of the BSEIU office at 240 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco) which not only kept the local unions in touch with one another but also helped create a politically powerful union as well.
The strong union which Hardy built also drew attention from organized crime. When mob
leaders tried to take over Local 87 in the late 1930s, Hardy and other leaders threatened them with baseball bats and refused to grant them entry to the union's property.
in the European Theater of Operations
from 1943 to 1946.
After his discharge from the Army in 1946, Hardy returned to Los Angeles and was elected president of BSEIU Local 399. Two years later, after the death of his father opened a position on the BSEIU international executive board, Hardy was elected an international vice president of the union. In 1950, he also established the SEIU Western Conference, the first interstate conference of councils and locals within the international union. The same year he undertook major organizing campaigns again among public employees and expanded the union's membership drive to include health care workers. He also began affiliating many small, independent unions to help bolster his membership numbers. To support the organizing effort, Hardy established a large research department at the California State Council and within his home local to conduct investigations into employer businesses. Hardy also pushed BSEIU locals under his control to hire researchers as business agents and local union officers. Hardy also built large member education and training divisions in many locals.
The member education divisions not only educated members about how unions work, but also served to boost Hardy's political efforts. George Hardy despised Republicans
and labor leaders who supported them. From the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Hardy and the BSEIU locals in California became much more active politically. All of his support went toward liberal
Democrats
. During these years he set up a committee of labor union leaders to support Democrats and wean labor leaders away from the Republican Party.
The move into health care was particularly risky. The National Labor Relations Act
(NLRA) of 1935 originally included health care workers from the protection of federal labor law, but the Taft-Hartley Act
amendments exempted workers employed by non-profit
health care organizations from the law in 1947. Since nearly all health care organizations at the time were non-profit, this effectively excluded the vast majority of health care workers from federal labor law. In 1962, Congress passed legislation allowing workers in health care institutions owned by the federal government to engage in collective bargaining
. Publicly-owned
hospitals were covered by the NLRA in 1967, and non-profit nursing home
s in 1970. Congress amended the Taft-Hartley Act in 1974 to bring non-profit hospitals back under the NLRA's coverage. BSEIU had organized its first hospital workers in San Francisco in the 1930s. Hardy's push into health care proceeded very slowly. Nationwide, only 2.3 percent of all health care institutions had a union in 1970. Despite a sharp upturn in the number of dismissals of health care workers for union activity in the 1950s and 1960s, Hardy had organized one of the largest pockets of unionized health care workers outside New York City by the late 1960s.
By the time Hardy was elected SEIU president in 1971, SEIU's fastest-growing areas of membership were in health care and public employment. Under his leadership, SEIU's membership in California had grown to more than 105,000.
In 1955, Robert Thomas Hardy, George's 18-year-old son, died in an automobile accident. George Hardy had been grooming his son to take over leadership of Local 399 and the California State Council. The death of his son affected Hardy very deeply, and led him to associate with younger people for the rest of his life. most notably Phillip Burton (later Congressman), Timothy J. Twomey (SEIU Local 250 and International VP), Jim Zellers (SEIU Local 399) and Sal Rosselli (SEIU-UHW).
, the 66-year-old president of SEIU (it had dropped the "Building" in 1968), retired at the union's convention in the fall of 1971. A number of younger, more activist leaders whose bases of support lay in the health care and public sector divisions of the union had challenged Sullivan for leadership, and he retired rather than seek re-election. Sixty-year-old George Hardy was elected his successor. He was elected a vice president of the AFL-CIO in 1972, and elected to the labor federation's executive council at the same time. Hardy chafed under Meany's leadership, and in 1979 he publicly criticized Meany for not doing enough to organize workers into unions.
Under Hardy, SEIU's health care and public employee divisions saw rapid growth. SEIU added 42,000 members in 1972 alone, and had grown by a surprising 100,000 members by the end of 1975. During his tenure, SEIU grew to 935,000 members and became the fifth-largest affiliate in the AFL-CIO. As part of his organizing effort, Hardy started a special program in 1972 to hire college-educated interns and turn them into negotiators and international union representatives. In 1972, Hardy engaged in an abortive attempt to form the first national policeman's union. In 1975, the union organized its first local union of physicians, an action which allowed SEIU to become the largest doctors' union in the U.S. by the turn of the century. Much of the membership growth, however, came through affiliation rather than new member organizing. Hardy viewed the fast-growing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME) as SEIU's chief competitor. AFSCME had grown from a mere 100,000 members in 1951 to 500,000 members in 1972, and had elected a dynamic and aggressive new leader, 45-year-old Jerry Wurf
, in 1964. Not only was AFSCME's growth substantial, its demographics matched those of SEIU's: At least two-thirds of the rival union's members were blue-collar workers, and a fifth of them worked in hospitals and nursing homes. To counter AFSCME's rapid growth, Hardy adopted a strategy of affiliating existing members rather than organizing unorganized workers. Between 1971 and 1980, SEIU affiliated 22 independent unions. Merger and affiliation accounted for 230,000 new members from 1971 to 1985, and virtually all of the union's growth from 1980 to 1984.
(CSEA). In existence since 1910, CSEA had won representation rights for New York State's 140,000 public employees after the state passed a public employee collective bargaining law in 1968. Structured like an association rather than a union, CSEA hesitated to engage in militant labor action or strike, and yet it had a rocky relationship with the state: The union struck for two days at the beginning of April 1972 and won a 5.5 percent pay hike. But the strike and dissatisfaction with CSEA's leadership led some CSEA members to ask for representation by SEIU. With Hardy's strong backing, the union was able to gather enough signatures on petitions to trigger a vote in two of the four units where workers were represented by CSEA, but SEIU lost the vote by a 3-to-1 margin in December 1972. A second strike planned by CSEA leaders was called off after delegates overwhelmingly repudiated a strike resolution supported by the union's leaders. The internal strike led SEIU to once again challenge CSEA for a large unit of New York State public employees. In an election held December 5, 1975, an SEIU-led coalition which included the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT), the Laborers' International Union of North America
, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
, and several building trades unions was defeated by CSEA, 10,858 to 10,348 with 1,015 voting for neither union. With neither side winning a majority, a second election was held the first week of February 1976, which CSEA won (14,321 to 10,184).
But Hardy continued to raid CSEA. CSEA leaders initially sought protection by affiliating with AFSCME. Article 20 of the AFL-CIO constitution prohibits affiliates from raiding one another's members, and an affiliation with AFSCME would have won CSEA relief from the raids. But CSEA delegates formally barred their leaders from seeking an affiliation with AFSCME in March 1976. CSEA's contract with the state of New York expired in 1977. Although CSEA leaders once more proposed a strike, the union settled for a 14 percent pay raise in April 1977. Hardy, convinced SEIU could successfully raid CSEA, conducted secret polls which showed that deep unrest in the professional, scientific, and technical (PS&T) unit. Working only with the AFT, SEIU once more obtained enough petitions to challenge CSEA representation in the PS&T unit. The raid was successful, and the coalition (known as the Public Employees Federation
) won, 15,062 to 12,259. Hardy and AFT leader Albert Shanker
hoped to raid CSEA further, but CSEA affiliated with AFSMCE on April 21, 1978. The affiliation made AFSCME the largest affiliate in the AFL-CIO.
CSEA challenged the SEIU/AFT coaltion's victory, however. CSEA attorneys alleged that nearly 5,000 of the signatures on the petition forcing an election were fraudulent. A New York Supreme Court
(the state's trial court
of general jurisdiction
) initially dismissed the suit, but it was reinstated by a state appellate court
. As the lawsuit progressed, CSEA won a new three-year contract which included a 7 percent pay hike in the first year. But the Public Employees Federation ultimately prevailed in the New York Court of Appeals
(the highest court
in the state of New York) on March 28, 1979. PEF subsequently negotiated a controversial contract which gave union members a 36 percent pay increase over three years. Submitted to the members without the approval of PEF's executive council, the contract was overwhelmingly approved by PEF members on December 6, 1979.
had refused to endorse George McGovern
for president in the 1972 presidential election
, Hardy formed a group of like-minded labor leaders and announced the group would stump nationiwide for McGovern. In gratitude for his actions, Hardy was nominated to and won a seat on the Democratic National Committee in 1973. Despite the public nature of his political feuds with the more conservative Meany, Hardy backed Meany when the AFL-CIO attempted to block proportional rules for race, ethnicity, and gender among delegates to the DNC Convention. Hardy was one of many labor leaders to provide early support to former Oklahoma
Senator
Fred Harris
during his run for the presidency in 1976
. Even after Harris' campaign had collapsed, Hardy continued to push his candidacy. He also publicly criticized jimmy Carter
for accepting a $1,000 donation from the anti-union J.P. Stevens
textile company. In the 1980 presidential election
, Hardy backed California
Governor
Jerry Brown
for president. Some argued that Hardy's support was given because Brown had intervened in a labor dispute between SEIU and the California Horse Racing Board. When Brown's candidacy collapse, Hardy backed Massachusetts
Senator Ted Kennedy
's candidacy for president.
Hardy was active locally and nationally on a variety of issues in the 1970s. He sat on a President Richard Nixon
's Cost of Living Council, and was an active participant on its health industry wage and salary committee. He was an early advocate for crackdowns on waste and fraud in the nation's nursing homes, and advocated that the government not pay for poor quality care. When New York City neared bankruptcy in 1975, Hardy led a group of union leaders in lobbying for federal aid for the city. He also pushed for federal legislation which would give federal and state public employees the right to strike
.
(RWDSU), was a union of nurses, service workers, LPNs, and other health care employees. By 1960, it had organized nearly every hospital in New York City, and in the 1970s expanded nationwide. RWDSU had been expelled by the AFL-CIO in the 1950s for leftist tendencies, and the union's success in health care was giving rise to rumors of raiding. 1199, as the union was called, wanted to disaffiliate from RWDSU and join with a larger union with greater organizing resources. Moe Foner
and other leaders of 1199 began meeting with Hardy in the late 1970s to explore affiliation with SEIU. The negotiations did not come to any conclusion, however, and in the early 1980s a major split in 1199 led all of the union's locals outside New York City to disaffiliate and form their own independent national healthcare union, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE). NUHHCE received a charter from the AFl-CIO in 1984, which prevented any raids on it. But NUHHCE was too thinly spread nationwide, however, with 75,000 members in 12 locals, and its leaders quickly decided to merge with another national union. In 1989, NUHHCE permitted its locals to vote to merge with either SEIU or AFSCME. A third of the locals affiliated went with AFSCME, and two-thirds with SEIU. These mergers made SEIU the largest health care workers' union in North America and the fastest-growing member of the AFL-CIO. In 1991, the original Local 1199 in New York City disaffiliated from RWDSU and became independent; it merged with SEIU in 1998.
Despite Hardy's cordial discussions with 1199 and his success in growing the union, some union leaders considered him too elderly to continue to lead the union and that his age had contributed to the lack of new member organizing. Faced with growing opposition in the leadership ranks, Hardy retired at the regularly scheduled SEIU convention in 1980. He was succeeded by John Sweeney
.
On the occasion of his retirement, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland
praised him. "George Hardy does not wear his social philosophy on his sleeve. He carries it in his heart," Kirkland said. "Because he is so uncompromising in his beliefs, it would be impossible not to have been on the opposite side of an issue at least once. But win or lose, George knows that when the fight for idealism is over, the practical battle for the survival of the labor movement begins. This commitment is what turns a collection of unions into a movement."
Hardy suffered from respiratory failure
in his last years. He died of the disease at UCSF Children's Hospital in San Francisco on September 13, 1990. Hardy was survived by his daughter, Joan Hardy Twomey, two grandchildren. Elizabeth Twomey and Robert Mitchell Twomey (Jennifer Rose Twomey d. 1981 in car accident at 18yrs old), and great grandchildren D'Artagnan Mitchell Twomey, Siobhan Diores Twomey, Jennifer Rose Twomey and Jacqeline Comendador.
"Hardy was one of the great union leaders," Edmund G. (Pat) Brown
, former Governor of California, said when his death was announced.
Canadian-American
A Canadian American is someone who was born or someone who grew up in Canada then moved to the United States. The term is particularly apt when applied or self-applied to people with strong ties to Canada, such as those who have lived a significant portion of their lives in, or were educated in,...
labor
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
leader who was president of the Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States , and Canada...
(SEIU) from 1971 to 1980. At the time of his death, SEIU had grown to become the fifth-largest affiliate of the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
. Hardy was a vice president of the AFL-CIO from 1972 to 1980, and a member of its executive council. He was a former member of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
and the California Democratic State Central Committee.
Early life and union career
Hardy was born to Charles and Bertha (Fitchett) Hardy on December 15, 1911, in North Vancouver, British ColumbiaNorth Vancouver, British Columbia
There are two municipalities in the Greater Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada, that use the name North Vancouver. These are:*The City of North Vancouver...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The Hardys moved to San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, in the 1920s. Hardy and his family came to San Francisco from Canada working their way as migrant fruit pickers. George grew up on Linden Street in the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
Hayes Valley
Hayes Valley, San Francisco, California
Hayes Valley is a fashionable neighborhood in San Francisco, California, between the historical districts of Alamo Square and Civic Center. Victorian, Queen Anne, and Edwardian townhouses rub shoulders with boutiques, restaurants, and public housing complexes....
district of San Francisco. living next door to the Cheney Family. George married Norma Mitchell in San Francisco and had two children, Joan Marie Hardy and Robert Thomas Hardy. Robert was killed in a car accident in 1955 at the age of 18, returning from a high school graduation trip to Arizona. George credited Norma, her sisters, best friend Ellis Cheney and so many "anonymous" janitors for the support and collaboration which fueled his great success and the growth of BSEIU (later SEIU) on the West Coast and throughout North America.
1926 to 1942
George's father, Charles (also known as "Pop"), was a janitor, and George became one, too. Pop Hardy joined Theater Janitors Local 9 of the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU) in 1926, and soon became an unpaid organizer for the union. Pop Hardy soon was elected president of the local as well as an International Vice President. Although the BSEIU was dominated by organized crimeOrganized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
at the time, Charles Hardy was generally considered honest and a figurehead who was not part of the mob's inner circle on the board. In 1932, George Hardy also joined Local 9, the oldest Building Service Employees International Union local in California. The year he joined, he was elected the local's business agent. During the San Francisco General Strike of 1934, Hardy helped his father to organize service workers to support the strike, leading to the closure of restaurants, movie theaters, night clubs, and office buildings during the four-day strike.
George Hardy began working as a janitor at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco Public Library
The San Francisco Public Library is a public library system serving the city of San Francisco. Its main library is located in San Francisco's Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street at Grove. The first public library of San Francisco officially opened in 1879, just 30 years after the California Gold...
in 1935. One night, a foreman
Construction foreman
A construction foreman is the worker or tradesman who is in charge of a construction crew. While traditionally this role has been assumed by a senior male worker, the title in the modern sense is gender non-specific in intent...
dropped a match behind a radiator
Radiator
Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in automobiles, buildings, and electronics...
; when Hardy missed it, he was fired. Angry at the pettiness and mistreatment, Hardy, his father and other Irish janitors formed a new local for office building janitors, Local 87. George Hardy became an organizer for the new union in 1936. Hardy worked by day, and by night (often not sleeping for several days) he organized workers into the new union. Repeatedly fired for his off-hours union work, Hardy was blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
ed. Under future leaders such as Herman Eimers Rex Kennedy, and Robert Parr, members of Local 87 continued to enjoy improved wages, benefits and working conditions. These victories were all won with very few strikes.
Nonetheless, within seven years Hardy had organized a majority of the city's janitors. Hardy formed a group known as the "Hayes Valley Gang"—neighborhood friends who were also blacklisted janitors and union organizers—who traveled helped organize building workers in San Francisco and then traveled to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to build several small locals. By 1943, Hardy had organized BSEIU locals from San Francisco to San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. Hardy's efforts at organizing were helped by the international union's quick growth and increasing strength. BSEIU's national membership was almost 100,000 in 1945, and reached more than 200,000 by 1950. Hardy moved to Los Angeles in 1946, and the union's organizing efforts (strongly backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
) took off in the city under his leadership: Three locals with just 2,800 members blossomed into eight locals with more than 8,500 members. By 1950, Hardy boasted that so many workers had been organized in Los Angeles (including a third of the city's large office buildings) that the union had obtained 40 percent wage hikes in the past four years. Local 399 had 5,000 members in 1950 and 11,000 in 1960—making it the second largest local in the national BSEIU. Hardy pressed for, and the union was successful at, the transformation of part-time jobs into full-time positions. Health benefits and pension were also added to most union contracts.
Hardy also began to expand the union's base. By 1960, over a third of the members in Los Angeles worked in the public sector. The union also expanded out of office buildings, and represented workers in bowling alleys, supermarkets, hotels, apartment buildings, gymnasiums, clubs, public schools, and hospitals. Hardy expanded the union's racial and ethnic diversity as well. By 1950, half of the members in Local 399 (the largest in Los Angeles) were African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, and 9 percent were Mexican American
Mexican American
Mexican Americans are Americans of Mexican descent. As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States' population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States...
. Overall, 38 percent of BSEIU members in Los Angeles were black.
Hardy also made several important innovations in union structure and operations. First, he united all BSEIU locals in the state into a new California State Council, the first statewide coordinated body in SEIU history. Second, he built an extensive communications network of bulletins, mailings, newsletters and updates (all run out of the BSEIU office at 240 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco) which not only kept the local unions in touch with one another but also helped create a politically powerful union as well.
The strong union which Hardy built also drew attention from organized crime. When mob
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
leaders tried to take over Local 87 in the late 1930s, Hardy and other leaders threatened them with baseball bats and refused to grant them entry to the union's property.
1943 to 1971
Hardy served with the United States ArmyUnited States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
in the European Theater of Operations
European Theater of Operations
The European Theater of Operations, United States Army was a United States Army formation which directed U.S. Army operations in parts of Europe from 1942 to 1945. It referred to Army Ground Forces, United States Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces operations north of Italy and the...
from 1943 to 1946.
After his discharge from the Army in 1946, Hardy returned to Los Angeles and was elected president of BSEIU Local 399. Two years later, after the death of his father opened a position on the BSEIU international executive board, Hardy was elected an international vice president of the union. In 1950, he also established the SEIU Western Conference, the first interstate conference of councils and locals within the international union. The same year he undertook major organizing campaigns again among public employees and expanded the union's membership drive to include health care workers. He also began affiliating many small, independent unions to help bolster his membership numbers. To support the organizing effort, Hardy established a large research department at the California State Council and within his home local to conduct investigations into employer businesses. Hardy also pushed BSEIU locals under his control to hire researchers as business agents and local union officers. Hardy also built large member education and training divisions in many locals.
The member education divisions not only educated members about how unions work, but also served to boost Hardy's political efforts. George Hardy despised Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and labor leaders who supported them. From the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Hardy and the BSEIU locals in California became much more active politically. All of his support went toward liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Democrats
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. During these years he set up a committee of labor union leaders to support Democrats and wean labor leaders away from the Republican Party.
The move into health care was particularly risky. The National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
(NLRA) of 1935 originally included health care workers from the protection of federal labor law, but the Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
amendments exempted workers employed by non-profit
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
health care organizations from the law in 1947. Since nearly all health care organizations at the time were non-profit, this effectively excluded the vast majority of health care workers from federal labor law. In 1962, Congress passed legislation allowing workers in health care institutions owned by the federal government to engage in collective bargaining
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions...
. Publicly-owned
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
hospitals were covered by the NLRA in 1967, and non-profit nursing home
Nursing home
A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...
s in 1970. Congress amended the Taft-Hartley Act in 1974 to bring non-profit hospitals back under the NLRA's coverage. BSEIU had organized its first hospital workers in San Francisco in the 1930s. Hardy's push into health care proceeded very slowly. Nationwide, only 2.3 percent of all health care institutions had a union in 1970. Despite a sharp upturn in the number of dismissals of health care workers for union activity in the 1950s and 1960s, Hardy had organized one of the largest pockets of unionized health care workers outside New York City by the late 1960s.
By the time Hardy was elected SEIU president in 1971, SEIU's fastest-growing areas of membership were in health care and public employment. Under his leadership, SEIU's membership in California had grown to more than 105,000.
In 1955, Robert Thomas Hardy, George's 18-year-old son, died in an automobile accident. George Hardy had been grooming his son to take over leadership of Local 399 and the California State Council. The death of his son affected Hardy very deeply, and led him to associate with younger people for the rest of his life. most notably Phillip Burton (later Congressman), Timothy J. Twomey (SEIU Local 250 and International VP), Jim Zellers (SEIU Local 399) and Sal Rosselli (SEIU-UHW).
SEIU presidency
David SullivanDavid Sullivan (labor leader)
David Sullivan was an American labor leader and president of the Building Service Employees International Union , the precursor to the Service Employees International Union, from 1960 to 1971.-Early life:...
, the 66-year-old president of SEIU (it had dropped the "Building" in 1968), retired at the union's convention in the fall of 1971. A number of younger, more activist leaders whose bases of support lay in the health care and public sector divisions of the union had challenged Sullivan for leadership, and he retired rather than seek re-election. Sixty-year-old George Hardy was elected his successor. He was elected a vice president of the AFL-CIO in 1972, and elected to the labor federation's executive council at the same time. Hardy chafed under Meany's leadership, and in 1979 he publicly criticized Meany for not doing enough to organize workers into unions.
Under Hardy, SEIU's health care and public employee divisions saw rapid growth. SEIU added 42,000 members in 1972 alone, and had grown by a surprising 100,000 members by the end of 1975. During his tenure, SEIU grew to 935,000 members and became the fifth-largest affiliate in the AFL-CIO. As part of his organizing effort, Hardy started a special program in 1972 to hire college-educated interns and turn them into negotiators and international union representatives. In 1972, Hardy engaged in an abortive attempt to form the first national policeman's union. In 1975, the union organized its first local union of physicians, an action which allowed SEIU to become the largest doctors' union in the U.S. by the turn of the century. Much of the membership growth, however, came through affiliation rather than new member organizing. Hardy viewed the fast-growing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is the second- or third-largest labor union in the United States and one of the fastest-growing, representing over 1.4 million employees, primarily in local and state government and in the health care industry. AFSCME is part of the...
(AFSCME) as SEIU's chief competitor. AFSCME had grown from a mere 100,000 members in 1951 to 500,000 members in 1972, and had elected a dynamic and aggressive new leader, 45-year-old Jerry Wurf
Jerome Wurf
Jerome Wurf was a U.S. labor leader and president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees from 1964 to 1981.Wurf was born in New York City in 1919...
, in 1964. Not only was AFSCME's growth substantial, its demographics matched those of SEIU's: At least two-thirds of the rival union's members were blue-collar workers, and a fifth of them worked in hospitals and nursing homes. To counter AFSCME's rapid growth, Hardy adopted a strategy of affiliating existing members rather than organizing unorganized workers. Between 1971 and 1980, SEIU affiliated 22 independent unions. Merger and affiliation accounted for 230,000 new members from 1971 to 1985, and virtually all of the union's growth from 1980 to 1984.
Battle with CSEA
Another of the union's major growth spurts came in 1979, when it raided the Civil Service Employees AssociationCivil Service Employees Association
The Civil Service Employees Association is a labor union, now Local 1000 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees . Founded by civil service workers for the State of New York as the Association of State Civil Service Employees on Oct. 24, 1910, the CSEA affiliated with...
(CSEA). In existence since 1910, CSEA had won representation rights for New York State's 140,000 public employees after the state passed a public employee collective bargaining law in 1968. Structured like an association rather than a union, CSEA hesitated to engage in militant labor action or strike, and yet it had a rocky relationship with the state: The union struck for two days at the beginning of April 1972 and won a 5.5 percent pay hike. But the strike and dissatisfaction with CSEA's leadership led some CSEA members to ask for representation by SEIU. With Hardy's strong backing, the union was able to gather enough signatures on petitions to trigger a vote in two of the four units where workers were represented by CSEA, but SEIU lost the vote by a 3-to-1 margin in December 1972. A second strike planned by CSEA leaders was called off after delegates overwhelmingly repudiated a strike resolution supported by the union's leaders. The internal strike led SEIU to once again challenge CSEA for a large unit of New York State public employees. In an election held December 5, 1975, an SEIU-led coalition which included the American Federation of Teachers
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
(AFT), the Laborers' International Union of North America
Laborers' International Union of North America
The Laborers' International Union of North America is an American and Canadian labor union formed in 1903. As of March 31, 2010, they have about 632,000 members, members, about 80,000 of which are in Canada.The current general president is Terence M...
, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
, and several building trades unions was defeated by CSEA, 10,858 to 10,348 with 1,015 voting for neither union. With neither side winning a majority, a second election was held the first week of February 1976, which CSEA won (14,321 to 10,184).
But Hardy continued to raid CSEA. CSEA leaders initially sought protection by affiliating with AFSCME. Article 20 of the AFL-CIO constitution prohibits affiliates from raiding one another's members, and an affiliation with AFSCME would have won CSEA relief from the raids. But CSEA delegates formally barred their leaders from seeking an affiliation with AFSCME in March 1976. CSEA's contract with the state of New York expired in 1977. Although CSEA leaders once more proposed a strike, the union settled for a 14 percent pay raise in April 1977. Hardy, convinced SEIU could successfully raid CSEA, conducted secret polls which showed that deep unrest in the professional, scientific, and technical (PS&T) unit. Working only with the AFT, SEIU once more obtained enough petitions to challenge CSEA representation in the PS&T unit. The raid was successful, and the coalition (known as the Public Employees Federation
Public Employees Federation
The Public Employees Federation is an American union representing 55,599 professional, scientific, and technical public employees in the state of New York. The union is one of the largest local white-collar unions in the United States and is New York's second-largest state-employee union...
) won, 15,062 to 12,259. Hardy and AFT leader Albert Shanker
Albert Shanker
Albert Shanker was President of the United Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1984 as well as President of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997.-Early life:...
hoped to raid CSEA further, but CSEA affiliated with AFSMCE on April 21, 1978. The affiliation made AFSCME the largest affiliate in the AFL-CIO.
CSEA challenged the SEIU/AFT coaltion's victory, however. CSEA attorneys alleged that nearly 5,000 of the signatures on the petition forcing an election were fraudulent. A New York Supreme Court
New York Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in thestate court system of New York, United States. There is a supreme court in each of New York State's 62 counties, although some smaller counties share judges with neighboring counties...
(the state's trial court
Trial court
A trial court or court of first instance is a court in which trials take place. Such courts are said to have original jurisdiction.- In the United States :...
of general jurisdiction
General jurisdiction
A court of general jurisdiction is one that has the authority to hear cases of all kinds - criminal, civil, family, probate, and so forth.-Courts of general jurisdiction in the United States:All federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Many U.S...
) initially dismissed the suit, but it was reinstated by a state appellate court
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The Appellate Division is composed of four departments .*The First Department covers the Bronx The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate...
. As the lawsuit progressed, CSEA won a new three-year contract which included a 7 percent pay hike in the first year. But the Public Employees Federation ultimately prevailed in the New York Court of Appeals
New York Court of Appeals
The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the U.S. state of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six associate judges who are appointed by the Governor to 14-year terms...
(the highest court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
in the state of New York) on March 28, 1979. PEF subsequently negotiated a controversial contract which gave union members a 36 percent pay increase over three years. Submitted to the members without the approval of PEF's executive council, the contract was overwhelmingly approved by PEF members on December 6, 1979.
Political activity
Hardy continued to be very politically active as SEIU president. Angry that the AFL-CIO executive council and AFL-CIO president George MeanyGeorge Meany
William George Meany led labor union federations in the United States. As an officer of the American Federation of Labor, he represented the AFL on the National War Labor Board during World War II....
had refused to endorse George McGovern
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
for president in the 1972 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1972
The United States presidential election of 1972 was the 47th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 7, 1972. The Democratic Party's nomination was eventually won by Senator George McGovern, who ran an anti-war campaign against incumbent Republican President Richard...
, Hardy formed a group of like-minded labor leaders and announced the group would stump nationiwide for McGovern. In gratitude for his actions, Hardy was nominated to and won a seat on the Democratic National Committee in 1973. Despite the public nature of his political feuds with the more conservative Meany, Hardy backed Meany when the AFL-CIO attempted to block proportional rules for race, ethnicity, and gender among delegates to the DNC Convention. Hardy was one of many labor leaders to provide early support to former Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Fred Harris
Fred R. Harris
Fred Roy Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.-Biography:...
during his run for the presidency in 1976
United States presidential election, 1976
The United States presidential election of 1976 followed the resignation of President Richard Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal. It pitted incumbent President Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate, against the relatively unknown former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic...
. Even after Harris' campaign had collapsed, Hardy continued to push his candidacy. He also publicly criticized jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
for accepting a $1,000 donation from the anti-union J.P. Stevens
WestPoint Home
WestPoint Home is a conglomerate corporation that dates back over 200 years through the companies that have merged together. Beginning with J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc...
textile company. In the 1980 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent...
, Hardy backed California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Governor
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. is an American politician. Brown served as the 34th Governor of California , and is currently serving as the 39th California Governor...
for president. Some argued that Hardy's support was given because Brown had intervened in a labor dispute between SEIU and the California Horse Racing Board. When Brown's candidacy collapse, Hardy backed Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
Senator Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...
's candidacy for president.
Hardy was active locally and nationally on a variety of issues in the 1970s. He sat on a President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's Cost of Living Council, and was an active participant on its health industry wage and salary committee. He was an early advocate for crackdowns on waste and fraud in the nation's nursing homes, and advocated that the government not pay for poor quality care. When New York City neared bankruptcy in 1975, Hardy led a group of union leaders in lobbying for federal aid for the city. He also pushed for federal legislation which would give federal and state public employees the right to strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
.
Final negotiations
In his final years as president of SEIU, Hardy laid the ground for yet another major affiliation. The Drug, Hospital, and Health Care Employees Union, Local 1199 of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store UnionRetail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union is a labor union in the United States and Canada that is a semi-autonomous division of the United Food and Commercial Workers, Change to Win Federation...
(RWDSU), was a union of nurses, service workers, LPNs, and other health care employees. By 1960, it had organized nearly every hospital in New York City, and in the 1970s expanded nationwide. RWDSU had been expelled by the AFL-CIO in the 1950s for leftist tendencies, and the union's success in health care was giving rise to rumors of raiding. 1199, as the union was called, wanted to disaffiliate from RWDSU and join with a larger union with greater organizing resources. Moe Foner
Moe Foner
Morris "Moe" Foner was a labor leader active in Union 1199, the New York Health and Human Service Union.-Early years:Foner was born and raised in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn...
and other leaders of 1199 began meeting with Hardy in the late 1970s to explore affiliation with SEIU. The negotiations did not come to any conclusion, however, and in the early 1980s a major split in 1199 led all of the union's locals outside New York City to disaffiliate and form their own independent national healthcare union, the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees (NUHHCE). NUHHCE received a charter from the AFl-CIO in 1984, which prevented any raids on it. But NUHHCE was too thinly spread nationwide, however, with 75,000 members in 12 locals, and its leaders quickly decided to merge with another national union. In 1989, NUHHCE permitted its locals to vote to merge with either SEIU or AFSCME. A third of the locals affiliated went with AFSCME, and two-thirds with SEIU. These mergers made SEIU the largest health care workers' union in North America and the fastest-growing member of the AFL-CIO. In 1991, the original Local 1199 in New York City disaffiliated from RWDSU and became independent; it merged with SEIU in 1998.
Despite Hardy's cordial discussions with 1199 and his success in growing the union, some union leaders considered him too elderly to continue to lead the union and that his age had contributed to the lack of new member organizing. Faced with growing opposition in the leadership ranks, Hardy retired at the regularly scheduled SEIU convention in 1980. He was succeeded by John Sweeney
John Sweeney (labor leader)
John Joseph Sweeney was the president of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009.-Early years:Born in The Bronx, New York, Sweeney is the son of Joseph and Agnes , both Irish immigrants. The family moved to Yonkers in 1944, where Sweeney attended St. Barnabas Elementary School and graduated from Cardinal...
.
On the occasion of his retirement, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland
Lane Kirkland
Joseph Lane Kirkland was a US labor union leader who served as President of the AFL-CIO for over sixteen years.-Biography:...
praised him. "George Hardy does not wear his social philosophy on his sleeve. He carries it in his heart," Kirkland said. "Because he is so uncompromising in his beliefs, it would be impossible not to have been on the opposite side of an issue at least once. But win or lose, George knows that when the fight for idealism is over, the practical battle for the survival of the labor movement begins. This commitment is what turns a collection of unions into a movement."
Death
George Hardy retired with second wife, Cissy, in Los Angeles. After her death in 1990., George returned to the family home on Lawton Street in San Francisco's Sunset District.Hardy suffered from respiratory failure
Respiratory failure
The term respiratory failure, in medicine, is used to describe inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, with the result that arterial oxygen and/or carbon dioxide levels cannot be maintained within their normal ranges. A drop in blood oxygenation is known as hypoxemia; a rise in arterial...
in his last years. He died of the disease at UCSF Children's Hospital in San Francisco on September 13, 1990. Hardy was survived by his daughter, Joan Hardy Twomey, two grandchildren. Elizabeth Twomey and Robert Mitchell Twomey (Jennifer Rose Twomey d. 1981 in car accident at 18yrs old), and great grandchildren D'Artagnan Mitchell Twomey, Siobhan Diores Twomey, Jennifer Rose Twomey and Jacqeline Comendador.
"Hardy was one of the great union leaders," Edmund G. (Pat) Brown
Pat Brown
Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown, Sr. was the 32nd Governor of California, serving from 1959 to 1967, and the father of current Governor of California Jerry Brown.-Background:...
, former Governor of California, said when his death was announced.