Anna Burger

Anna Burger is currently an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University where she will lead an initiative to build a sustainable funding model for the progressive infrastructure and grassroots movement.

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 2006 and 2009.

Burger has played a major role in the progressive movement and is now looking forward to continuing 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.