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LINK to AFL-CIO
Website
The AFL-CIO is governed by a
quadrennial convention at which all federation members are
represented by elected delegates of their unions. Convention
delegates set broad policies and goals for the union movement
and every four years elect the AFL-CIO officers—the president,
secretary-treasurer, executive vice president and 43 vice
presidents.
These
officers make up the AFL-CIO Executive Council, which guides the
daily work of the federation. An AFL-CIO General Board includes
the Executive Council members, a chief officer of each
affiliated union and the trade and industrial departments
created by the AFL-CIO constitution and four regional
representatives of the state federations. The General Board
takes up matters referred to it by the Executive Council, which
traditionally include endorsements of candidates for U.S.
president and vice president.
John J.
Sweeney, President
John J. Sweeney was elected president
of the AFL-CIO at the federation's biennial convention in
October 1995 and has been re-elected three times since
then. At the time of his election, he was serving his fourth
four-year term as president of SEIU, which grew from 625,000 to
1.1 million members under his leadership. An AFL-CIO vice
president since 1980, Sweeney was born May 5, 1934, in Bronx,
N.Y.
His trade union career began as a
research assistant with the Ladies Garment Workers. In 1960, he
joined SEIU as a contract director for New York City Local 32B.
He went on to become union president and to lead two citywide
strikes of apartment maintenance workers. In 1980, he was
elected president of the international. Sweeney is the author of
America Needs A Raise: Fighting for Economic Security and
Social Justice.
Linda Chavez-Thompson,
Executive Vice President
Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected
executive vice president of the AFL-CIO at the federation’s
1995 convention and was re-elected to a new four-year term in
2005. She is the first person to hold the post of AFL-CIO
executive vice president, and she is the first person of color
to be elected to one of the federation’s three highest
offices.
A native of Lubbock, Texas,
Chavez-Thompson is a second-generation American of Mexican
descent. She brings to her work 35 years of experience in the
labor movement, beginning in 1967 with her first work for the
Laborers’ local union in Lubbock. She went on to serve in a
variety of posts with the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in San Antonio, Texas, and
became an international vice president in 1988, a post she held
until 1996. She also served from 1986 to 1996 as a national vice
president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement,
AFL-CIO. In 1993, Chavez-Thompson was elected and served a
two-year term as one of 31 vice presidents on the Executive
Council of the national AFL-CIO.
As executive vice president of the
federation, Chavez-Thompson represents the labor movement as a
member of the board for several national organizations,
including the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice,
the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. She also serves as a
member of the Board of Governors for the United Way of America,
and as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. In
2001, she was elected president of ORIT, the Inter-American
Regional Organization of Workers, which is the Western
Hemispheric arm of the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions.
Richard L. Trumka,
Secretary-Treasurer
The youngest secretary-treasurer in
AFL-CIO history, Richard L. Trumka was first elected to the post
in October 1995 at the age of 46. Born in Nemacolin, Pa., on
July 24, 1949, Trumka was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive
Council in 1989. At the time of his election to
secretary-treasurer, he was serving his third term as president
of the Mine Workers.
At the UMWA, Trumka led two major
strikes against the Pittston Coal Co. and the Bituminous Coal
Operators Association. The actions resulted in significant
advances in employee-employer cooperation and the enhancement of
mine workers' job security, pensions and benefits. In 1994,
President Clinton named him to the Bipartisan Commission on
Entitlement and Tax Reform to represent the interests of working
families.
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