National AFL-CIO President John Sweeney joins Mayor Gavin Newsom and local and state labor leaders at City Hall.
Leaders tout the success of the Healthy San Francisco program as an example of the benefits of a strong public health care option could provide nationally.
Bio
Ken Jacobs
Ken Jacobs is the Chair of the Labor Center, where he as been a Labor Specialist since 2002. His areas of specialization include: health care coverage, low-wage work, the retail industry and public policy.
Recent papers have examined declining job-based health coverage in California and the U.S., the public cost of low-wage jobs, and transformations in the retail industry. He provided consultation to the City and County of San Francisco on the development of the San Francisco Health Care Security Ordinance and was a member of the Mayor's Universal Health Care Council.
Before joining the Labor Center, Ken was with the Bay Area Organizing Committee (BAOC), an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, where he worked on improving wages and expanding health care coverage for low-wage workers.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom was elected as the 49th Lieutenant Governor of the State of California on November 2, 2010. His top priorities are economic development and job creation, improving access to higher education, and maintaining California's environmental leadership. Prior to being elected Lieutenant Governor, he served two-terms as Mayor of San Francisco. Under his leadership, the economy grew and jobs were created. The City became a center for biotech and clean tech. He initiated a plan to bring universal health care to all of the City's uninsured residents. And Newsom aggressively pursued local solutions to global climate change. In the final days of his second term as Mayor, Newsom led a historic drive to host the 2013 America's Cup, one of the largest and most prestigious sporting events in the world, which is expected to generate roughly 8,000 jobs and $1.2 billion for the local and state economy.
Tim Paulson
Tim Paulson joined the San Francisco Labor Council as its Executive Director in September 2004. The San Francisco Labor Council is the center of labor activity in San Francisco and is comprised of 150 local unions, representing over 100,000 working men and women in San Francisco. The mission of the Council is to promote social and economic justice for all working people. As Executive Director, Tim leads and coordinates labor's political activities, organizes events and rallies, and supports affiliates in their bargaining and contract negotiations when necessary.
Tim has over two decades of extensive experience in the labor movement. Before joining the San Francisco Labor Council, Tim worked as the Political Director and Assistant Executive Officer of the San Mateo County Central Labor Council. At the San Mateo CLC Tim directed all political activities of the Council and coordinated a wide range of Council activities, including the staffing of the Council's Airport Labor Coalition, a monthly convening of unions which monitors and coordinates labor activities at SFO.
Art Pulaski
Art Pulaski is the Chief Officer of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. The Federation represents 2.1 million members of 1,200 manufacturing, service, construction and public sector unions.
Since his election in 1996, Pulaski has reinvigorated grassroots activism in unions and championed support for new organizing. Under his leadership, the Federation has helped to elect worker-friendly candidates in the State Legislature and won the passage of landmark legislation.
In that time, the Federation's achievements have included restoring daily overtime pay, raising the minimum wage, increasing benefits for injured and unemployed workers and passing the nation's first comprehensive Paid Family Leave law. In 2003, the Federation won an historic law to extend employer-based health care in California. While the law was later overturned in a referendum, its passage helped redefine the debate on health care reform.
John Sweeney
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. He has been an AFL-CIO vice president since 1980.
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.
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