Oral Histories

Martina Casey

   October 28, 2023

   

Member/Leader, SEIU Local 880 (ACORN affiliate organization), Chicago, 1996-2008; Board Member, SEIU HCIIMK*, 2008-2014 *HCIIMK was a new Local organized in 2008 and composed of SEIU Local 880’s 70,000 homecare and childcare members, SEIU Local 4’s 10,000 nursing home members, and SEIU Local 20’s 7,000 hospital and clinic workers.

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1. October 28, 2023 Interviewed by Craig Rothman

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Martina Casey joined home childcare organizing in the late 1990s or early 2000s. She ran a childcare center in her home and cared for children under the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) that greatly expanded under President Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform legislation. She was an early organizer and key member of the campaign to organize home childcare providers in Chicago and eventually became a leader and spokesperson during the fight for recognition in 2005.