A final, lasting tribute to Eddie Kay, a working-class hero

On June 23, the stretch of 19th Street between Avenues N and O in Brooklyn was renamed “Eddie Kay Way.” Speakers honoring Eddie included Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and former Mayor Bill de Blasio, both of whom knew him personally as a result of his later-life political efforts. But most of Eddie’s life was spent doing trade-union work, and within those unions, encouraging workers to empower themselves and gain confidence in their own efforts. 

I worked with Eddie for almost 20 years at Hospital Workers Union (now SEIU) 1199, and knew him for almost 40 years. Here’s what I said at the ceremony about this extraordinary trade unionist, the ultimate organizer, or as many said of him, ‘an organizer’s organizer.’

Eddie’s 37-year career in 1199, New York’s health-care union, started in 1962 as a worker in a drugstore. He became an active delegate who fought for his fellow co-workers and pushed the union to be an early opponent of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He caught the attention of the union’s organizing director, and joined 1199’s staff in 1967 as an organizer assigned to the Queens and Long Island division, where he worked arduously to organize hospitals and nursing homes. 

Eddie essentially built 1199 in Queens and Long Island. Organizing nursing homes was very challenging in those early years, and as a result the union had often accepted weak contracts to get a foot in the door. Eddie started the process of building up power in these shops and identifying new leaders. 

He helped workers prepare themselves to strike. Eddie knew that the members were scared and empathized with that fear, but challenged them to overcome it. When the time came and the members indeed came to the point of being willing to strike, Eddie considered it one of his great victories.

Not only did Eddie successfully organize much of this area, he ran it with an incredible amount of member involvement and militancy. This would be the hallmark of his organizing method for the rest of his life.

Eddie was singled out in Bob Muehlenkamp’s article “Organizing Never Stops.” “When we have a demonstration or we have a picket line in our local union and we want the members to come out and we want the members to participate, why is it that Eddie's area in our union has the most participation, even though the buses from his area of the union have to come the farthest?... And the only answer to that we can come up with — after years and years of looking at this question — is that it does not depend on some kind of skilled mobilizing for that event, and it doesn't depend on the charismatic personality of the organizer or the office involved, and it doesn't depend on any other differences among workers because they are pretty much the same. What it does depend on is the kind of day-to-day organization and representation among the members” that Eddie’s chapters cultivated.

“Internal organizing in Eddie's area continues after the first contract — the same organizing drive we needed to start the union. 

“That means we continue to keep our charts up to date. And if a shop steward retires or quits, we just as intensively and seriously and immediately recruit a member to replace that shop steward as we do a committee member during the organizing drive. And if a new hire comes on board, we target who will organize them to support their union, including house visiting them. And if the employer does something which is outside our clear rights under a contract, instead of just letting it pass, we mobilize the workers in every way we can think of to fight against it. And it means that if the union is to be represented in organizations outside the union and to the public at large, it is the rank-and-filers — and not always the same ones, but different ones — who are targeted and recruited on a constant basis to represent the union.

“And it means that after we establish the union, we continue to follow the fundamental principle of all organizing: that it is the job of the organizers — which means every union leader — not to talk to those who are already convinced, not to preach to those who are already in church, but constantly to reach out to those who still have an open mind but are not with us. That is the only way to stop from becoming a ‘club’ — and having our leadership seen by the members as some kind of third party.

“The only way we will do this and successfully involve members is if we treat each member as an individual who is important. I think that is the answer to the question of why participation in Eddie's area is always greater.”

Eddie went on to successfully lead the organizing drive at NY Presbyterian Hospital, one of the largest medical centers in New York City. This was a very difficult organizing task, one that had been attempted unsuccessfully twice before Eddie was assigned. He concentrated on building a strong organizing committee, teaching them, and giving them increasing amounts of responsibility and assignments, but the real key was understanding that Columbia-Presbyterian management had always disrespected its workers. In Eddie’s words, “The hospital thought they were hot shit, and we approached the fight from that angle.” Although the hospital gave workers pay increases in an attempt to stave off unionization, the effort was successful. When the Union won, a laundry worker stated, “Now, no more fear; that’s over now.”

When 1199 went through some bad leadership in the early 1980s, Eddie led the rank-and-file movement to bring 1199 back to its progressive roots. From this rank-and-file struggle emerged the 1199 led by Dennis Rivera and now George Gresham that is such a strength in the labor movement. It is not an exaggeration to say that this does not happen without the organizational genius of Eddie Kay. Eddie served as the union-wide coordinator of 1199 until 1999. He influenced numerous organizers and officers with his intense member involvement approach to running a union.

For the next 20+ years, after he had supposedly “retired,” Eddie brought his organizing approach to other unions. Sometimes he was hired to help change the existing union culture to a more dynamic one, training stewards and staff, such as in TWU Local 100 or AFCME 1707. Other times he worked directly with rank-and-file workers, helping them organize to take control of moribund unions and turn them into dynamic fighting organizations, such as with LIUNA Local 78 asbestos workers, ATU school bus drivers, USPS letter carriers and many more. Indeed, from the 1960s until illness struck in 2021, Eddie traveled the country teaching his brand of trade unionism. He also put his organizing acumen at the service of numerous progressive political campaigns, in New York City and New York State as well as throughout the country.

Eddie’s deep belief was that ordinary workers themselves, organized properly, could achieve extraordinary things. He put that into practice with an unreal work ethic, by really listening to workers, and then instilling in them the conviction that they could build real power in their workplaces. One of Eddie’s most prominent protegees, Stan Israel, put it best: “Eddie could talk to a guy with a PhD, and he could talk to a guy who never finished high school. At the end of the day, they’ll both follow him through the door.” His tireless fight for a better world where workers have strong rights is his great legacy.

Eddie Kay, March 8, 1933-February 15, 2022