Lenore Friedlaender

Lenore Friedlaender is Assistant to the President of 32BJ SEIU, a labor union representing 145,000 office cleaners, building maintenance, operations, and security workers in 11 states and the District of Columbia, including 70,000 who work in New York City.

Ms. Friedlaender oversees the strategic partnership work of 32BJ, building solid and meaningful alliances with community, labor, clergy, and advocacy partners locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. She built 32BJ’s member engagement and leadership development program based on a lifelong mission of helping working people become active and involved in improving their working conditions and fighting for a more just and humane society.

She developed adult education curricula for member and staff training modules, and has trained staff and members to train others on the curriculum. Ms. Friedlaender founded 32BJ’s summer youth training and internship program, the 32BJ Arts Committee, and 32BJ’s member organizing program, providing members and their 18- to 25-year-old children or grandchildren the opportunity to develop their organizing and leadership skills.

After coming to 32BJ in 1999, Ms. Friedlaender served as Director of Organizing for five years, and spent two years co-leading the representation work in New York City. Before working with 32BJ, she was a manager in SEIU’s national organizing efforts on the Justice for Janitors Campaign, Dignity nursing home campaign, and hospital organizing campaigns. In 2003, she was the second woman elected Vice President of 32BJ since its founding in the 1930s, and the first woman elected Assistant to the President in 2012.

Ms. Friedlaender is a member of the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies, CUNY Labor Advisory Board member, and is a Co-chair of the Thomas Shortman Training Fund Advisory Committee. She is also one of the trustees of the union’s legal service fund and a deputy trustee of the union’s health, pension, training, and supplemental retirement savings program funds.

Ms. Friedlaender serves on the Strategic Partners Committee of the SEIU International Union Executive Board and the Executive Committee of the SEIU Property Services Division. She is a representative of SEIU on the Uni Global Union Federation Property Services Section.

A resident of Woodside, Queens, Ms. Friedlaender currently serves as Executive Director of Climate Jobs New York.