Powerful labor leader George Gresham, who served as president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East from 2007 until his retirement in 2025, died May 8 after a long illness. He was 71. Gresham leaves a legacy of social justice and union organizing as well as praise and recognition for his impact on the next generation of organized labor changemakers.
Gresham, who was also a longtime contributor to the Amsterdam News, began his union career 50 years ago while working in hospital laundry and housekeeping at what is now NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He started in the housekeeping department and with the help of 1199’s Training and Upgrading Fund was able to go back to school, move into radiology work, and become an MRI technologist. Co-workers elected him to serve as a shop delegate, and he later joined the union staff as an organizer.
SEIU Secretary-Treasurer emeritus Gerry Hudson, who came up in the movement alongside Gresham and 1199 legend Dennis Rivera, said the trio’s partnership took shape in the late 1980s. “George and I, along with Dennis Rivera … we started back in ’87, ’88,” Hudson recalled. During those “formative years,” Hudson said the union moved from shop-floor activism to a political and bargaining force that would reshape New York’s labor landscape.
Hudson pointed to 1989 as a crucial moment: “Dennis became president of 1199 in ’89,” he said, and it was “also the year that we … won a historic hospital strike” and helped elect David Dinkins as mayor. For Hudson, those wins illustrated what they were committed to from the start—building worker power at the bargaining table and using it in the public arena to change who had power in City Hall and across the state.
In the span of four decades, Gresham held every elected office at 1199, serving as a delegate, organizer, vice president, executive vice president, and secretary-treasurer before being elected president in 2007, succeeding Rivera, another standout 1199 leader. Under Gresham, 1199SEIU focused on securing wage increases, affordable health benefits, retirement security, and continuing education for healthcare workers.
His administration worked to expand standards, add childcare, and advocate for safer staffing levels. Gresham also advanced 1199’s role in coalition politics, linking labor issues to racial justice, immigrant rights, and broader progressive efforts in New York and beyond—an approach Hudson said was foundational, not optional. “For us, the whole question of social justice was always in our DNA,” Hudson said. “We did not believe you could separate off the battle for economic justice inside of the labor movement from the battle for racial justice in the country as a whole.”
During Gresham’s tenure, the union grew to 450,000 members across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, and Washington, D.C. It became the nation’s largest healthcare union and a powerful force in New York politics. Gresham pushed for improved job standards for frontline caregivers and made 1199SEIU a key player in the state’s labor and electoral arenas.
Asked how 1199 made that linkage real, Hudson emphasized member ownership—and early proof points. “It was never a hard sell for our members,” he said, adding that the union’s victories in 1989 showed their approach could win beyond the workplace: “Our ability to help Dinkins get elected and to beat the … Voluntary Hospital Association in ’89 also said, you know, not only were we able to sort of sell ourselves on it, we could sell the world on it.”
Hudson looks at 1199’s growth as one of the clearest measures of that strategy’s success. “We were 89,000 to maybe 90,000 members … mostly downstate New York,” he said. “And now we are in Boston, we’re in New York, we’re in New Jersey, we’re in Maryland, we’re in Florida … in five to six states and the union is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 450,000.” That jump “from 89,000 or so to 450,000 or so,” he said, happened largely “under Dennis and then under George’s leadership.”
Even amid today’s polarized politics, Hudson said the union’s next generation inherits both an obligation and an advantage. “They have no choice,” he said of continuing Gresham’s work, noting that leaders now “begin with an incredible history and a much bigger union … they’re not starting with something small, they’re starting with something big.” Hudson added that the challenge is national in scope: “Not only are we battling to revitalize the labor movement, but I think we’re also battling to revitalize the democracy and the country as a whole.
With Gresham’s passing, tributes from labor and political leaders poured in; Gov. Kathy Hochul called him a “legendary labor leader,” and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie described him as “a vital voice in the progressive movement.” New York City ordered flags to half-staff, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a statement honoring Gresham’s dedication to fighting for the dignity, safety, and economic security of healthcare workers and their families, adding, “Our hearts are with his family, loved ones, and the entire 1199SEIU community.” In a statement, SEIU International President April Verrett said, “Today, the SEIU family, the labor movement, and the global fight for social justice have lost a giant.”
For those who worked alongside him—and the young organizers he opened doors for—Gresham’s power was never only in contract talks. “He was a fearless advocate and a powerful voice for working people,” said Bill Lynch III, who worked closely with Gresham through labor and coalition campaigns.
Marvin Bing, a civil rights and cultural organizer who worked with Gresham during the Obama-era “One Nation Working Together” mobilization, said his first meeting with Gresham reshaped his understanding of labor leadership. “Up until that point, I never even knew that there was ever an African American president of a labor union,” Bing said. “So it was sort of like a culture shock for me as a young guy who, again, wasn’t really a student of labor unions as a whole at the time, to find out that there was Black leadership in this union.”
Bing said Gresham backed the work in concrete ways. “Over the course of One Nation, you know, George Gresham gave us an office out of his union where we worked every day,” he said, adding that the group spoke to Gresham “almost three, four times a week” about organizing progress.
He pointed to the 2010 “One Nation” march in Washington, D.C., as an example of Gresham’s ability to mobilize and then step back so younger leaders could lead. “He was really a catalyst for that mobilization,” Lynch said, recalling that organizers brought “several thousand people down” and that the broader demonstration drew thousands of people.
Bing said Gresham’s approach resonated because he treated a union member’s work life and community life as one struggle. “Because I think he understood that every table is interconnected, right?” Bing said. “He was fully invested in the totality of his members’ lives in and outside of them being a part of the union.”
During his last year as president, Gresham faced a notably competitive internal election race. In May 2025, members ousted him and chose veteran 1199 leader Yvonne Armstrong as president and Veronica Turner-Biggs as secretary-treasurer. The election took place after there had been intense criticism of his administration’s spending and oversight, especially after an investigation by POLITICO last year, which reported allegations of misuse of union funds—claims Gresham denied. The union hired an outside firm, Union Neutrals, to conduct an independent review of expenses. Gresham publicly congratulated Armstrong and Turner-Biggs on their win, and his term ended in June 2025.
For many members and allies, that orderly transfer of power—under scrutiny—became part of Gresham’s closing chapter. In its announcement, 1199SEIU said, “President Gresham served our union proudly for many years and we owe a debt of gratitude for the many fights he championed over the decades, starting from when he joined 1199 as a rank-and-file member at Presbyterian Hospital 50 years ago.” The union added, “Over the course of his tenure, he inspired, strengthened, and grew our union in numerous ways, and for that we will always be grateful.”
Bing urged those Gresham mentored to carry the work forward. “Pray for his family and all the people that he touched and young people that he mentored,” he said. “I just hope and pray that somebody follows his example in the fight we have today and in the future.”