Joseph T. Hansen
UFCW International President
Joseph T. Hansen is leading the transformation of the UFCW into a dynamic, growth-focused organization poised to unite the millions of North American workers who want and need a union. After four decades of union activism, Joe’s mission is essentially the same as it was when he began his career: organizing workers for power and uniting them at the bargaining table to win middle class wages, benefits, and respect on the job.
Today, Hansen stands at the helm of the broad-based worker movement to win respect for work and those who do the work. Joe is an effective voice for working people, advocating for affordable, quality health care for all; for comprehensive and humane immigration reform; and for the millions of working people who want a voice on the job. He is helping revitalize the labor movement to meet the challenges of the global economy—by delivering union jobs that provide wages that pay the bills, retirement security, and affordable health care. His leadership is bringing new hope and opportunity for workers and their families to improve their living standards and live a middle class life.
Joe began his career as a meatcutter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since that time, Hansen has been activating and empowering members. He spent more than 11 years working at his trade while serving as a volunteer organizer for his local union—Local 73 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America. His activism helped keep Milwaukee a union town, where new grocery stores were quickly met with organizing activity. His passion for organizing led Hansen to become one of the youngest members of his local union’s executive board. Hansen was elected to serve as International Secretary-Treasurer in 1997 and International President in 2004.
Hansen has been active in the global union movement since 1994. His early experience with global unionism provided him with the foresight to realize that only global solidarity can confront global corporations. He took office as president of Union Network International (UNI), an international labor organization representing 15 million workers in 900 unions in more than 100 countries, in 2003. He was reelected president at its second World Congress in Chicago in 2005.
In the United States, lawmakers and opinion leaders seek his perspective and leadership on two of the most important challenges facing American workers in the 21st century—health care and immigration reform.
In 2005, the U.S. Congress named Hansen to the 14-member Citizens’ Health Care working Group. The panel is charged with bringing the American people together to confront the health care crisis and facilitating the direct communication of their views and concerns to lawmakers so that Congress can initiate comprehensive, national health care reform. He is the only union leader who has served on the panel which included esteemed health care providers and advocates, economists, and other leaders. He is a leader in the Health Care for America Now movement, an unprecedented grassroots effort to win health care reform after the 2008 elections.
Hansen is the Founding National Chair of the National Commission on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights. The commission is shining a light on ICE misconduct during workplace raids and will present findings to the American people about the terrible costs and human suffering caused by ICE misconduct.
Hansen is a founding architect of the Change to Win Federation that has set a new course for the labor movement. Recognizing that industry-wide organizing is the best way to give workers the power to confront companies at the bargaining table, Joe is a hands-on leader of the new six-million member federation dedicated to organizing more than 50 million North American workers. His commitment to building this worker movement is helping ignite the largest multi-union organizing effort in the last half century. Under Hansen’s leadership, the UFCW has undergone a dramatic shift in priorities as more staff and resources than ever before are dedicated to uniting workers and bringing them under a union contract.
At the core of Hansen’s leadership is the spirit and exuberance that he demonstrated as a young volunteer organizer and activist. He knows that activated members can organize, that they can build their union, and that they can confront corporate power and win. After all, Hansen did all of those things as a rank-and-file member—today he is activating and leading a new generation of workers and building a 21st century union.
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