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Earlier this fall, the working people of Illinois lost a fierce leader and advocate. Alberta Walker was a founding mother and longtime member leader with SEIU Healthcare Illinois, a union of more than 90,000 healthcare, childcare, home care, and nursing home workers here in our state and across the midwest. Throughout her long career in home care, her tenacity, sharp wit, and unwavering commitment to justice improved the lives of countless workers, children, elders, and families through fairer wages and better working conditions.
As I’ve reflected on her life’s work, her dedication to care, and the impact she’s had on our union, I am reminded of the lessons she passed down to me which I believe we can all learn from.
Alberta found her way into the labor movement through her dedication to caring for those around her — something she prioritized above all else throughout her life. She joined her first union while working as a frontend manager at the grocery store Jewel-Osco, where she worked for 25 years. It was there that her true passion for advocacy began to shine. She became a union steward, fighting for the rights of her co-workers and honing her ability to speak truth to power.
While Alberta was a mother figure and caregiver to so many throughout her years of service, nowhere was this more true than with her own family. Mother to four children and eight grandchildren, she sacrificed a great deal to provide them with loving care. After her son suffered a paralyzing gunshot wound, she left her career at Jewel-Osco to become her son’s caregiver through the Department of Rehabilitation’s Home Services Program, which allowed her to stay home and care for her son and put her on a new path as a home and childcare worker. The path where she would teach us the biggest lesson of all.
Due to a legacy of racism and sexism, home care and child care workers had no collective bargaining rights or even a minimum wage when Alberta started working as a full-time caregiver. A majority woman-of-color workforce, care workers were intentionally written out of every labor law and had almost no protections on the job. But that didn’t deter Alberta from fighting for justice.
She joined together with other care workers to found Legacy Local 880 — the first-ever union for care workers in Illinois. She fought for and won HB2221, a landmark bill that granted collective bargaining rights to over 20,000 home care workers across Illinois and established a minimum wage for home care workers. In a full-circle moment, she was there in person when the bill was signed.
But she didn’t stop there. Alberta knew the fight for justice was just getting started. When Local 880 merged with two other healthcare unions to form SEIU Healthcare Illinois, she wasted no time getting involved with union leadership, including serving on our union’s executive board. Over the course of her time organizing Illinois care workers with our union, Alberta traveled across the country to educate workers and showed them how they can use their voices to speak up and organize for better working conditions.
The clarity of her convictions combined with her nurturing and maternal disposition allowed her to speak to the very core of the workers she met with, empowering every individual to value their own needs and trust in their ability to advocate with and for their fellow workers. Her impact was so deeply felt across our union that in 2016, we presented her with a certificate of recognition for signing up over 1,000 home care workers to join our union.
Alberta was a woman who cared deeply for those who care for the most vulnerable among us. Our union is made up of hardworking individuals who have dedicated their lives to difficult, often thankless jobs — and Alberta embodied what it truly means to work in service of others while never giving up her voice or backing down from a fight for those she cared about. She didn’t just talk the talk, she walked the walk. And in the process, showed us all how to do the same.
The most important lesson that Alberta’s legacy teaches us is to never stop fighting for a better future, even if it seems impossible. She was part of a group of women who were systematically denied their basic rights because of who they were, but who kept organizing and speaking up until they were heard. And even then, they never stopped fighting. She fostered a whole new generation of organizers and advocates and left us all with a bounty of knowledge that will allow us to continue the legacy of the women who fiercely fought for our rights.
To truly honor Alberta’s legacy, we must carry her fight forward. That means fighting for a future where every worker, no matter their race, background or zip code, is respected, protected and paid a family-sustaining wage and has a voice on the job through a union.
Alberta’s voice within our union meetings and with those lucky enough to call her a friend will be sorely missed. Rest in power, dear sister.
