Labor in America: Past, Present, and Future of Unions

To the extent that labor unions are discussed at all in business education, they are primarily presented as obstacles that management must overcome to achieve worthy corporate goals. What's the other side of the story?

Two experienced union leaders and a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board dissected the real value collective bargaining brings to workplaces in America.

Moderated by Lenny Mendonca, a former lecturer on inequality at the Graduate School of Business, the panel also explored the evolution of unions, from the origins of the 20th Century labor movement to today's newfound energy in Amazon warehouses and Starbucks throughout the country.

The esteemed panel included: Valerie T. Hardy-Mahoney, Oakland California Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board; Peter Olney, retired Organizing Director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; and Dave Regan, President of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) and Vice President of the two million-member International SEIU.

Participant bios

Lenny Mendonca (moderator), former Chief Economic and Business Advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom and Chair of the California High Speed Rail Authority. He is a Senior Partner Emeritus of McKinsey & Company.

Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), one of the largest hospital unions in the United States, with more than 95,000 members in California. He also is a Vice President of the two million-member International SEIU. Regan has steered the union toward becoming a leader in ensuring that all people – whether union members or not – have access to quality, affordable healthcare and are paid living wages.

Peter Olney, retired Organizing Director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast. He has been a labor organizer for 50 years. He worked for multiple unions before joining the ILWU in 1997. For three years he was the Associate Director of the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California.

Valerie Hardy-Mahoney, Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board(NLRB) Oakland, California office. A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Ms. Hardy-Mahoney received her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and her J.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She began her career at the NLRB's Oakland Regional Office in 1982, as a Field Attorney. She was promoted to Supervisory Field Attorney in 2008 and to Deputy Regional Attorney in 2010.

Student Leader Moderator

Juan Saez, MBA '23