Anna Burger

Anna Burger is the Board Chair Cornell University ILR School Project on Sustainable Labor Practices in Global Supply Chains. Previously, she was the founder of the Gettysburg Project on Civic Engagement and worked on building alternative funding models for the progressive movement and new models for engaging people in America on the critical issues of our day based on science, fact, ethics and the common good.

Burger retired as Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU, the nation’s fastest growing union, after serving from 2001 to 2010. She was also the Chair of Change to Win, and the first woman to head an American labor federation. In 2006 and 2009, Burger was named one of Washingtonian Magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2011, she was an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University where she led an initiative to build a sustainable funding model for the progressive infrastructure and grassroots movement.

Burger has played a major role in the progressive movement and looks forward to continuing her work on building and sustaining the progressive infrastructure that protects American values of fairness and justice.

A longtime strategist, Burger led SEIU’s grassroots election work which helped elect President Obama and brought unprecedented victories for pro-worker candidates across the country.

As an outspoken voice on the role unions can play to restore economic fairness, Burger was named to the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board--a diverse group of economists, academics, business and labor leaders tasked with helping to guide the president's economic recovery policies.

Burger began her career in 1972 as a rank-and-file Pennsylvania state caseworker and union activist. She was elected in 1983 as SEIU Local 668's first female president. Throughout her career, she has pushed labor to deepen its commitment to equality for all.

Burger can be followed on Twitter at @AnnaBurger1.