Robby Stern
Special Assistant to the President 

Robby left his Seattle law practice in 1993 to join the Washington State Labor Council, and has become the organization's "point man" on a variety of policy areas, including international trade, health care and workers' compensation. As the WSLC's chief lobbyist he devotes a lot of his time and energy to promoting responsible legislation in these areas and many others related to workplace standards and rights.

An attorney since 1974, Robby previously worked as a community coalition organizer for the King County Labor Council. Prior to that, he was a pipefitter/welder for Washington Natural Gas, where he was an active member of UA Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 32, serving as shop steward and delegate to the Seattle Building Trades and King County Labor Council. He first joined Local 32 as a marine pipefitter trainee at Todd Shipyards in 1977. Robby has also been a member of the Washington Federation of Teachers as a part-time faculty member at Seattle Community College in the early 1970s, and was a member of AFSCME Local 1488, when he worked as a gardener at the University of Washington.

Robby has a B.A. in political science from Syracuse University in New York, and earned his law degree at the University of Washington. He has been an activist in the Puget Sound region for more than 35 years, and was widely known as a student activist in the civil rights and anti-war movement in the 1960s.

He is married to Dina Burstein, who works as a nurse at Harborview Hospital. They have two children, Jacob and Rivka.

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