Marcus Mc Rae-Alexander is proud to serve as one of SEIU Local 2015’s Executive Vice Presidents working on behalf of long-term care workers in California. Marcus has worked on social justice issues ranging from voter registration to healthcare access for communities of color and beyond for the past two decades. He joined the labor movement and our SEIU family in 2012.
He has played nearly every organizing role in the Local since that time—starting his journey as a Home Care Organizer, rising to become Organizing Coordinator, then Regional Director for most of Northern California before serving in his most recent roles as Deputy Statewide Field Director. Marcus’ experience runs the gamut of SEIU Local 2015’s organizing efforts to build power for long-term care workers. He has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with home care and nursing home workers, often playing key roles in many of our victories across the state.
Marcus was elected to serve as Executive Vice President for the Local in February 2024 and is focused on uplifting caregivers, their needs and their dreams in Regions 2 and 3.
For much of his life, Marcus saw his mother and other relatives provide care for his grandmother and three aunts and uncles with disabilities who needed it.
“The caregivers in my family gave loving, round-the-clock care to our family that needed it. But they had to do this in a world that didn’t treat their work as real work and in a society that seemed to believe that so-called ‘non-productive’ members of society should be seen but not heard from,” Marcus recalls.
Working as a frontline organizer, he knocked on caregivers’ doors across Los Angeles County, urging them to take action on various issues providers care about. From their local contract fight to preventing cuts to home care funding in Sacramento, these issues were deeply personal to him, too.
“I know I didn’t convince everyone. But day after day, I met caregivers like my mother and my aunt, women with dreams. People who know that they deserve to have thriving lives and not to struggle off of poverty wages—talented and loving people—who had to fight being undervalued and underestimated every step of the way. Together as a union, we’ve made tremendous strides in creating a more just society for caregivers and for those we care for,” Marcus says.
As a Lead Organizer and then Organizing Coordinator, Marcus spearheaded our union’s efforts to mobilize LA County In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) workers to secure an improved contract, collaborated with the International Union to help lead 2015’s participation in winning the Fight for $15, and led the Local’s get out the vote (GOTV) and voter registration efforts in Nevada for the 2016 elections.
As the Member Strength Director, first for Region 4 (Sacramento, Central Valley) and then for both Region 4 and Region 6 (the Northstate, CA’s far-north), Marcus led the organizing, bargaining and representation programs for our industries through much of Northern California.
He then continued his dedication to caregivers by strengthening the organizing program for the whole state in his role as Deputy Statewide Field Director—leading the Local’s largest-scale GOTV volunteer operation and supporting the Local’s home care and nursing home advocacy in Washington D.C.
Each of the experiences he’s had inside and outside of the union have contributed to the strengths that he now brings to his leadership as EVP.
No matter what the position has been, Marcus is dedicated to growing the solidarity and connection that caregivers have with each other, and igniting a shared vision and passion in others for the Future of Care we need in California.
He is committed to ensuring all members of our union have a seat at the table and works to bring our vision of cross-racial solidarity into reality. Fluent in 8 languages, including 5 of the languages we speak in our union, Marcus utilizes this unique ability to ensure that we see and hear the full diversity of our members’ voices and experiences—rural and urban, immigrant and US-born, across geography, immigration status, gender, ability, language and age. As our youngest EVP, he’s passionate about inviting younger workers to develop their leadership side-by-side with workers from older generations.
He is a problem solver who, as a chief negotiator, worked collaboratively with county governments and employers to negotiate first-ever union contracts for workers in 18 counties, empowering our members to secure the wages and benefits they deserve and ensure their work is respected. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, he raced to win emergency protections and access to safety equipment for union and non-union workers, building power with members to prepare strikes in Sacramento and Stockton when nursing home operators refused to respect workers’ safety.
He stresses that “We live in a world now that better understands the critical role that caregivers play as essential workers in our society. We won’t look back to a world that refused to respect us, protect us and pay us. We will be uncompromising in our commitment to fight forward for a functioning long-term care system built on paying workers thriving wages and benefits.”
Marcus is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and has Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science, Linguistics and Anthropology. When he’s not busy working on behalf of caregivers, he enjoys gardening, reading, martial arts and playing oboe, clarinet, bassoon, flute, saxophone, percussion and kora—solo or with friends. He lives in the Bay Area with his husband and their two cats.