Anna Burger (born September 27, 1950) was the Secretary-Treasurer of

Service Employees International Union Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare (over half of member ...

(SEIU) and Chair of the

Change to Win Federation The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), formerly known as the Change to Win Federation (CtW) is a coalition of North American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL–CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advoca ...

. In February 2009, Burger was appointed as a member to the

President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board The President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, originally the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB), was an ad hoc panel of non-governmental experts from business, labor, academia and elsewhere that President of the United State ...

to provide the president and his administration with advice and counsel in fixing America's economic downturn. For 2011 she was a Fellow at Harvard University's Advanced Leadership Initiative.

Biography

Burger, born in

Levittown, Pennsylvania Levittown is a census-designated place (CDP) and planned community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The population was 52,983 at the 2010 census. It is above sea level. Though not a ...

, and daughter of a disabled truck driver and a nurse, began her activist career in 1972 as a welfare worker. It was there she became involved in her local union. Burger organized a walkout in efforts to create a safer working environment for the office. Burger became more active in her union, and quickly moved through the ranks of the local union. Burger became SEIU local 668's first full-time woman president before moving onto the SEIU International office in Washington, DC, to work as National Director of Field Operations, under former SEIU president John Sweeney. Burger successfully ran Sweeney's campaign for president of the AFL-CIO. She was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU, and Secretary-Treasurer in 2001, and announced her retirement on August 11, 2010. Burger and Stern called for a change in the AFL-CIO's strategies in June 2004. By the summer of 2005, 6 unions (including SEIU) withdrew their membership to the AFL-CIO, and created a new labor coalition, the Change to Win Federation. On September 27, 2005, Burger was elected Chair of the breakaway coalition. As the Chair of Change to Win, Burger became the first woman to lead an American labor coalition. In December 2009, the conservative

Americans for Tax Reform Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is a politically conservative U.S. advocacy group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today." According to ATR, "The government's power to control ...

organization formally requested a federal investigation of Burger, claiming that she is an unregistered

lobbyist In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...

, in violation of the Lobbyist Disclosure Act. However, upon investigating the matter, the U.S. Senate Secretary found the alleged charge of Burger as a federal lobbyist to be false, and closed her office's file on the matter. Burger is married to Earl F. Gohl and they have one daughter, Erin. Anna Burger currently lives in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

with her family.

References

External links

Anna Burger's website

Change to Win Federation official site

Anna Burger Biography at SEIU

SEIU official site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burger American trade union leaders Change to Win Federation 1950 births Living people People from Levittown, Pennsylvania