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Kathy Labriola Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 250 Collection
larc.ms.0392  
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Collection Overview
 
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Description
This collection documents the labor activities of Kathy Labriola, licensed vocational nurse, union activist, and community organizer. The records comprise newsletters, flyers, notes, correspondence, articles, clippings, and promotional materials collected and generated by Labriola in her role as shop steward for Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 250, and through her involvement in three union-related committees: the AIDS Education Committee, the Southern Africa Solidarity Committee, and the Committee for a Democratic Union (CDU). Other materials pertain to Labriola's role as a commissioner on the City of Berkeley Labor Commission, as well as her involvement in the fight against the two-gate system in the San Francisco Bay Area construction industry.
Background
Kathy Labriola was born in New Jersey and graduated as a licensed vocational nurse (LVN) from Bergen Pines School of Nursing in 1974. That same year she moved to California and passed the California State Board exam. Her involvement in labor unions started in the mid-1970s when, while working in convalescent hospitals in Berkeley, she experienced first-hand the low wages and unstable work conditions of the hospital employees and the anti-union stance of the hospital administrators. Labriola herself was laid off from her job as an LVN at Claremont Convalescent Hospital after attempting to unionize fellow workers. Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 250 (now SEIU UHW) is the oldest union representing healthcare workers in the United States. Started in 1934 by a group of service workers at San Francisco General, a publicly owned hospital, they were successful in their ability to unite and fight for higher wages. At that time there was no national union representing hospital workers and it wasn't until three years later that the local got a new charter from the Building Service Employees International Union, becoming BSEIU Local 250. In 1968 BSEIU changed its name to the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.
Extent
7.15 Cubic Feet (6 cartons; 1 box)
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Labor Archives and Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
Availability
Collection is open for research.