George Hardy (December 15, 1911 – September 13, 1990) was a Canadian-American labour leader who was president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from 1971 to 1980.
George grew up on Linden Street in the working class Hayes Valley district of San Francisco.
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, the Mitchell Sisters (Rene Cheney d.1975, Lottie Andre d.1975 and Edna Peralta d.1988), best friend Ellis Cheney and so many "anonymous" janitors for the support and collaboration which fuelled his great success and the growth of BSEIU (later SEIU) on the West Coast and throughout North America.
[7] Although the BSEIU was dominated by organized crime at the time,[8] Charles Hardy was generally considered honest and a figurehead who was not part of the mob's inner circle on the board.
[4][10][11] George Hardy began working as a janitor at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library in 1935.
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.
[11][14] 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.
[4] The same year he undertook major organizing campaigns again among public employees and expanded the union's membership drive to include health care workers.
[11] 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.
[19] In 1962, Congress passed legislation allowing workers in health care institutions owned by the federal government to engage in collective bargaining.
[12] The death of his son affected Hardy very deeply, and led him to associate with younger people for the rest of his life.
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.
Hardy viewed the fast-growing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) as SEIU's chief competitor.
[28] 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.
[28] To counter AFSCME's rapid growth, Hardy adopted a strategy of affiliating existing members rather than organizing unorganized workers.
[33] The internal strife led SEIU to once again challenge CSEA for a large unit of New York State public employees.
[36] Hardy, convinced SEIU could successfully raid CSEA, conducted secret polls which showed deep unrest in the professional, scientific, and technical (PS&T) unit.
[45] PEF subsequently negotiated a controversial contract which gave union members a 36 percent pay increase over three years.
Angry that the AFL-CIO executive council and AFL-CIO president George Meany 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 nationwide for McGovern.
[49] Hardy was one of many labour leaders to provide early support to former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris during his run for the presidency in 1976.
[53] Some argued that Hardy's support was given because Brown had intervened in a labour dispute between SEIU and the California Horse Racing Board.
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.
[60] 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 rumours of raiding.
[60][61] 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.
[60][61] These mergers made SEIU the largest health care workers' union in North America and the fastest-growing member of the AFL-CIO.
[1] George Hardy’s life and professional career is documented in historical materials housed within various archival collections.
The largest collection is the SEIU Executive Office: George Hardy Records[64] at the Walter P. Reuther Library.
Its records encompass SEIU's efforts to unionize healthcare workers, collective bargaining for public employees, and the unsuccessful merger with Local 1199.
Other collections on Hardy can be found at Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University.