Jeff Johnson
Special Assistant to the President

Jeff has worked for the Washington State Labor Council since 1986 serving as lead lobbyist, research and organizing director, shop steward for the staff unit, which is part of Office and Professional Employees Local 8, and is now the Special Assistant to the President.  

Jeff began his union life with Local 2190 of the American Federation of Teachers, AFl-CIO in 1979, teaching Labor Economics and Labor Studies to apprentices of IBEW Local 3 in New York City. Through the mid-1980’s Jeff taught union and community members at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, ACTWU (which later became UNITE), the National Congress of Neighborhood Women, and the Harry Van Arsdale Center for Labor Studies which is a division of Empire State College, SUNY. The Labor College, as the school is known, is the largest college for trade unionists in the U.S.

Jeff’s work at the WSLC has focused on legislation that improves the lives of working people through increasing collective bargaining and organizing rights, economic justice and anti-poverty measures, strengthening our workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance and employment standards, improving our health care system and protecting the rights of farm workers and immigrant workers.  

He represents labor on a number of committees, both internal (WSLC Diversity Committee; Workers’ Comp. Labor Caucus; UI Labor Caucus; Affordable Housing and Homeless Task Force) and external (Retro Advisory Committee; SBCTC Mission Task Force; L&I Independent Medical Exam Committee; L&I Vocational Rehabilitation Committee).

Jeff earned his B.A. in Political Science from Georgetown University and his M.A. and A.B.D. in Political Economy from the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research. He is married to Rebecca Smith, a member of the UAW and an attorney with the National Employment Law Project. They live in Olympia and have four children: Danica, Luca, Anya, and Addie.

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