Jorge Ramirez

Jorge Ramirez

Jorge Ramirez is president of the Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) and a vice president of the national American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). The CFL is the third largest central labor council of the national AFL-CIO, representing half a million working people across Chicago and Cook County. The AFL-CIO is the umbrella federation of U.S. unions, representing 13 million working men and women. Jorge has served as an officer of the Chicago Federation of Labor since July 2006 and was elected the CFL’s first Latino president in July 2010. In February 2015, he was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council as a vice president, helping to guide the daily work of the national federation. Jorge earned his first union card in 1988 through the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 1546. He worked his way up through the ranks, ultimately serving as UFCW Local 1546’s executive director before coming to the CFL. As the son of Mexican immigrants, Jorge understands the struggles his father, a meat packing worker in Chicago’s Back of Yards neighborhood, and his fellow workers endured to unionize their workplace in the 1960s. Many of the packing house workers were immigrants, often unable to fight for their rights on their own. By standing together they secured a union contract that offered better wages and benefits. As a child, Jorge witnessed first-hand the strength a collective voice gave to the packinghouse workers, occasionally standing with his father on the picket lines. The lessons he learned provide the motivation he has to serve working men and women in organized labor today. In his role as president of the CFL, Jorge serves on executive and advisory boardsfor labor, civic, and community organizations across the city and around the country. His involvement with these organizations allows him to represent the interests of labor and protect the fundamental rights of all workers. As a board member of theFederal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Jorge is promoting the Reserve’s dual mandate of maximum employment and stable prices to foster a healthy economy. Through his work with World Business Chicago, Choose Chicago, Chicago Infrastructure Trust and Navy Pier, Inc., Jorge is working to bring jobs and expand the region’s economy bygrowing and improving the city’s manufacturing, infrastructure, tourism and trade show opportunities. Locally, Jorge also serves on the boards of Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, the Archdiocese of Chicago Office for Immigrant Affairs, St. Joseph College Seminary, and other civic and community groups. Jorge graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso with a double major in marketing and computer information systems. He later went on to receive his Juris Doctor from the Chicago-Kent College of Law. He and his wife, Catrina, have four sons.