President, SEIU 775NW
David Rolf has led some of the largest organizing efforts since the 1930s. From 1995-1999 he led the successful organization of 75,000 home care aides in Los Angeles, the largest union organizing campaign since the 1940’s. He led the historic campaigns to win a $15 living wage ordinance in Seatac in 2013 and for a citywide $15 minimum wage in Seattle in 2014. The American Prospectcalls him “the most successful union organizer of the last 15 years.”
Since founding SEIU 775 in 2002, he has led its growth from 1600 to 44,000 members through new organizing, helped double the pay of its low-wage members, and bargained contracts that have created health, dental, vision, mileage, PTO, and other benefits for a previously minimum-wage, invisible workforce excluded from most labor and employment law protections.
Rolf has served on numerous governmental boards, committees and advisory bodies as an appointed advisor to Washington Governors Chris Gregoire and Jay Inslee, King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.He is the author of recent articles on the need for labor innovation that have appeared in Democracy Journal, the American Prospect, Spotlight on Poverty and Prosperity, the Aspen Journal of Ideas, and the Nation. His work and campaigns have been widely covered in the U.S. media including by every major news network, many major-market daily papers, and the progressive press.