Bread and Roses is the not-for-profit cultural arm of New York's Health and Human Service Union, 1199/SEIU. Its 220,000 predominantly Latina and African American women members are employed in all job categories in health care institutions throughout the metropolitan area, New Jersey and Florida.

Bread and Roses was founded in 1979 as a cultural resource for union members and students in New York City who would otherwise have little access to the arts. Special emphasis is given to programs that signify and interpret their history while generating new artistic expression.

Bread and Roses actively strives to depict artistic, cultural and historical themes and issues affecting people from many backgrounds. The New York Times has recognized us as "the most important cultural project in the labor movement". Bread and Roses established the only permanent union exhibition space in the nation, Gallery 1199, at the union’s New York City headquarters. Because of its diverse constituency of working people, many of whom are immigrants, Bread and Roses is the national leader for collaborative work, with a union, to bring the arts to an enormous group of people largely not reached by traditional arts institutions and programs.

Activities include free lunchtime drama, music and poetry programs with professional companies, Labor Day street fairs, videotapes and films, concerts at Lincoln Center as well as art and photography exhibitions at Gallery 1199 -- the only permanent exhibition hall in the labor movement.

In addition, posters, books and study guides based upon popular exhibitions have been nationally distributed to thousands of schools and universities, health-care organizations and labor and industrial organizations. Posters have been displayed on subways, buses, trains and in airports.

Today, 1199 is widely recognized as one of America’s most democratic and effective unions. Recently, 1199 joined the 1.5 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Bread and Roses now has an unprecedented mandate to undertake national projects and begin to bring its exhibitions and programs to cities across the country.

Some Bread and Roses successes include:

• a one-hour PBS documentary on Bread and Roses
• exhibitions and musical revues that have toured the nation
• a retrospective of Bread and Roses' award-winning documentary films sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center