Art Pulaski, Executive Secretary-Treasurer
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.
Art Pulaski's career in organized labor began at 16, when, as a stock clerk in a supermarket, he joined the Amalgamated Meat Cutters union. Since then he has worked as a union and community organizer, and held a number of union positions before being elected to lead the California Labor Federation.
Early in his career, Pulaski built coalitions with union and community groups for energy reform. He brought his alliance building to the Federation, joining unions with low-wage worker advocacy groups, faith-based organizations and retiree associations in campaigns to raise the minimum wage, stop the privatization of Social Security, and effect health care reform. He led the creation of Stand for California Coalition, a group of labor unions, religious organizations, civil rights groups and business interests and played a leadership role in the Apollo Alliance, a national coalition for cleaner energy and better jobs.
Pulaski has served on numerous gubernatorial panels and commissions on economic progress and workforce development. He was a founder of one of California’s model childcare centers, called PalCare, and served as president of nationally televised PBS series “We Do the Work”, the Labor Project for Working Families and the California Works Foundation.
Connie Leyva
This summer the eyes and ears of the nation are drawn to Connie M. Leyva, president of the California Labor Federation, as she participates on the committee that composes the Democratic Party’s national platform.
Sen. Barack Obama selected Leyva as one of 20 national leaders to write the platform, which lays down the principles and policies that will guide the party in coming years.
The appointment confirms her national reputation as an articulate and inspiring labor leader.
In 2004 Leyva became the first woman to be elected president of the California Labor Federation. In 2006 she became an international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. She continues to serve as president of Local 1428 (Pomona/Claremont) of the UFCW.
As the chief executive of UFCW Local 1428, Leyva performed a critical role during the 2003-2004 grocery strike and lockouts in Southern California, participating in high-level negotiations and serving as a spokeswoman for the seven UFCW locals involved in the epic labor dispute.
Leyva, 41, stands at the forefront of a new generation of leaders of Organized Labor that is forcefully bringing the needs and legitimate aspirations of working Americans back to the national agenda. She testified before a congressional panel on the need for affordable health care, coordinated the UFCW Region 8 Women’s Network and took prominent roles in the UFCW International Conventions in 1998 and 2003.
UFCW International President Joe Hansen appointed Leyva to co-chair the International Union’s Committee on the Future. In addition, she is a senior officer of the UFCW Western States Council.
Leyva’s roots in the Labor Movement are deep. Her father was a supermarket worker who belonged to UFCW Local 1428 and her mother has been a member of the California State Employees Association for 33 years. She met her husband, Albert, when both were working at an Alpha Beta supermarket.
Connie Leyva joined Local 1428 in 1985, her senior year in high school, while working for Alpha Beta. She worked her way through college, graduating in 1992 from the University of Redlands with a bachelor’s degree in communicative disorders. She started working at Local 1428 in 1994 as a temporary employee in the Benefits Department, rapidly becoming expert in members’ benefits.
She was appointed a union representative in 1995 by Joe F. Barragan, then president of the local, and was elected to succeed him after his sudden and untimely death. In early 2002, she became the first woman president of a UFCW local in Southern California.
On May 8, 2004, the California Teachers Association saluted Leyva as one of its Thirteen Amazing Women.
An activist in all aspects of her life, Leyva has worked to elect friends of working people to office in many federal, state and local political campaigns.
Leyva and her husband, Albert, have twin 16-year-old girls, Allie and Jessie. They live in Chino, California.