Manny Pastreich

Before becoming President, Manny was 32BJ’s director of bargaining and Secretary Treasurer. In this role, as number two to former President Kyle Bragg, he participated in bargaining every major agreement within the union, helping to win wage increases, shoring up members’ benefits and expanding protections for the 185,000 SEIU 32BJ members from NYC, D.C., Boston, New Jersey, and beyond.

Manny cut his teeth helping to bring thousands of members into SEIU and 32BJ. This included his work leading research (1992-1996) for the Justice for Janitors campaign in D.C. – that saw janitors and allies blocking bridges and major arteries – and as an executive supporting 32BJ’s successful new organizing of tens of thousands of security officers and airport workers in the 2000s. In the 1990s, he also worked as a researcher supporting SEIU’s organizing and bargaining across the country before doing a three-year stint as a research director for AFL-CIO on the United Farm Workers’ strawberry worker organizing campaign. He then completed another three years with the AFL-CIO, coordinating multi-union campaigns in the airline and airport sectors.

Manny joined 32BJ SEIU as a research director from 2002-2004, after which he became director of Collective Bargaining Benefits Fund and a Taft-Hartley Benefit Fund trustee covering several pension, health benefit, training and legal funds. Manny previously served as a board member at the Latin American Youth Center and his son’s little league board.