(The following story by Patrick J. McDonnell appeared on the Los Angeles Times website on May 8, 2010.)
LOS ANGELES — Pledging to “restore relations with the American labor movement,” Mary Kay Henry was named president Saturday of the Service Employees International Union, becoming the first woman to head the massive and politically influential group.
Henry’s election by the group’s governing board follows a period of explosive SEIU growth that contrasts sharply with a decades-long slide in union membership in the United States, where fewer than 1 in 10 private-sector workers are now unionized.