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Through hard work and a passionate commitment to social justice, Amy B. Dean is building bridges between organized labor and the community, strengthening the labor movement, and improving the lives of union members and their families. As the Chief Executive Officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council she is responsible for directing all policies and political activities of the AFL-CIO in Silicon Valley, representing organized labor before governmental bodies, and promoting the interests of labor in collaboration with community organizations.
As the umbrella organization for local unions, the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council is the fifteenth largest labor council in the nation, comprised of 110 affiliated local unions and representing over 100,000 working families in Silicon Valley. Dean is the youngest person to lead one of the largest metropolitan labor councils throughout the country and the first woman to head a labor council of this size.
In 1995, Dean founded Working Partnerships USA, a non-profit organization dedicated to rebuilding the links between regional economic policy and community well being. Through grassroots campaigns, popular education, research and advocacy, Working Partnerships USA is developing and enacting systemic reform to the economic problems confronting the Silicon Valley region and advancing viable strategies for community centered economic development.
In 1996, John Sweeney, National President of the AFL-CIO, named Dean as the Chair of the National Advisory Committee on the Future of Central Labor Councils. Through this important role, she is leading a nationwide strategic planning effort to expand the role of Central Labor Councils in economic development and coordinated organizing campaigns.
Dean began her tenure in the labor movement in 1985 when she was hired as an organizer by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) -- Midwest Region. A year later, she rose to become the Region's Political-Education Director where she was responsible for advancing the ILGWU's political and legislative agenda in a five- state region of the Midwest.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Dean attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she studied Sociology. She currently lives in San Jose, California, where she shares a home with numerous cacti and her husband, Randall G. Menna and child, Teddy.
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