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August 5, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PEOPLE
Heather Conroy steps down
Aug. 6 after five years as the
elected executive director of
Oregon’s largest union, Service
Employees International
Union (SEIU) Local 503. Con-
roy was
named exec-
utive vice
president of
SEIU’s inter-
national at its
quadrennial
convention
in May. Lo-
cal 503 rep-
Heather Conroy
resents
55,000 public and publicly
funded workers. Conroy has
been with the union since 1997.
She’ll remain in Portland in her
new position.
Oregon AFL-CIO has a new
staff person to assist affiliates
in organizing campaigns. Alma
Raya comes from the Immi-
grant Organ-
izing Project
in Los Ange-
les, where
she helped
organize car-
wash work-
ers, grocery
workers,
construction
Alma Raya
workers and
taxi drivers.
Raya was born in Mexico and
grew up in Salinas, California,
where she worked in the fields
alongside her parents. Raya is a
beneficiary of the Deferred Ac-
tion for Childhood Arrivals
program, which allows chil-
dren of undocumented immi-
grants who entered the country
before their 16th birthday to re-
ceive a renewable two-year
work permit and exemption
from deportation. At the Ore-
gon AFL-CIO, Raya replaces
organizer Ben Nelson, who
took a job as an organizer at
Laborers Local 483.
Joe Esmonde retired May 1 as
a business representative and
political co-
ordinator at
IBEW Local
48. Esmonde
joined Local
48 in 1988,
and became
a staff mem-
ber in 2000.
In retire-
Joe Esmonde
ment, he will
continue to serve as a member
of the TriMet Board of Direc-
tors. At Local 48, Jon Jensen
has assumed the role of politi-
cal coordinator.
Oregon AFSCME collective
bargaining director Stacy
Chamber-
lain was
elected vice
president of
the AF-
SCME na-
tional union
at its July 18-
22 conven-
tion, filling
the national Stacy Chamberlain
union board
seat that was held by newly re-
tired Oregon AFSCME execu-
tive director Ken Allen.
Jaime Sorenson moved on
July 6 after five years as a staff
representative at Oregon AF-
SCME to take a job at Kaiser
Permanente.
In the new
job, she’ll
communi-
cate with
union mem-
bers about
the benefits
of choosing
Kaiser, an
all-union
Jaime Sorenson
health
provider. Sorenson is a former
president of AFSCME Local
328 at Oregon Health and Sci-
ence University.
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