George Hardy (1911-1990) served as President of the Service Employees International Union from 1971-1980. Born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Hardy came to San Francisco as a child in the 1920s and grew up in the working-class Hayes Valley neighborhood. He followed in his father Charles "Pop" Hardy's footsteps, working as a janitor and joining the Theater Janitors Local 9 of the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU) in 1932. Pop Hardy was elected President of Local 9 and became a Vice President of BSEIU. George Hardy worked with his father on strikes and organizing campaigns, including the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. After serving as a radio operator with the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion in WWII, Hardy returned to California and organized service workers throughout the state. By 1947, he and his followers had secured contracts for janitors, maintenance workers, hospital staff and public employees in Los Angeles, forming 8 locals which eventually merged to become Local 399, the second-largest local in the BSEIU.

Pop Hardy died in 1948 at the age of 56. George Hardy, now President of Local 399, was elected to fill his father's vacancy on the BSEIU International Executive Board. In 1950 he formed the SEIU Western Conference to promote cooperation between locals from San Diego to Seattle, and became increasingly involved in political actions for the Democratic Party. During the 1960s he also turned his efforts to organizing health care workers, who had been largely unprotected by the National Labor Relations Act until 1962. By the time he was elected President of the International Union in 1971 (the organization became known as the Service Employees International Union in 1968) Hardy had raised SEIU membership in California to over 105,000.

As SEIU President, Hardy continued to grow the membership through organizing efforts and affiliations with smaller unions. He was nominated to a seat on the Democratic National Committee in 1973 and sat on President Nixon's Cost of Living Council. Under his leadership, the SEIU became the largest health care workers' union in North America. Hardy retired in 1980 at the age of 69. He died ten years later on September 13, 1990 in San Francisco.

Sources:

Ransom, David.(1980)."'So Much to be Done': George Hardy's Life in Organized Labor." Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC.

Cook, Joan. (1990 September 18). "George Hardy, 79, Pioneer Leader Of Service Worker Union, Is Dead." New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/18/obituaries/george-hardy-79-pioneer-leader-of-service-worker-union-is-dead.html