In 2002, I became the founding president of SEIU 775, the union for home care and nursing home workers in Washington State and Montana. Having started organizing right out of college in 1992, it had been an incredible privilege to lead two historic union organizing victories early in my career — the campaign to win union recognition for 74,000 Los Angeles home care aides in 1999, and 25,000 Washington home care aides in 2002. But thenbecoming an elected labor leader in a major union at the age of 33 was the honor and awesome responsibility of a lifetime.
At the end of this month, I’ll be turning over the leadership of SEIU 775 to my successor. Not because I’m retiring from the workforce (I’m 48, healthy, and certainly not wealthy) and not because our members are seeking different leadership. I’m leaving because, back in its infancy, our union had the foresight and courage to adopt term limits for its top elected leaders. And so for me, leaving the best job any organizer or activist could ever have will be an act of conscience, of joy, and of personal and organizational renewal. I couldn’t be happier, or more proud.