Tefere Gebre
Tefere Gebre is the first political refugee, the first black man, and the first local labor council leader elected to AFL-CIO national office. Gebre became the Executive Vice President after he led the Orange County Federation of Labor through a transformative process of membership growth and building political power in an infamously conservative county. His exceptional story began at fourteen years old when he left Ethiopia and made his way as a child refugee to a camp in the Sudan. A year later he arrived alone in Los Angeles, put himself through school and earned a college scholarship. Eventually he petitioned for his mother to migrate to the U.S. At the Federation, he works to improve the political and organizing capacity for local labor bodies, as well as advancing democracy-building, racial justice and immigrant workers’ rights.