Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: April Verrett

25. April Verrett

There are so many iterations of the Service Employees International Union, better known as SEIU, that it takes a scorecard to keep them straight. Many of their leaders are on our list – rightly, too, because their clout can be translated into votes – and that brings us to April Verrett. She is the president of the 400,000-member SEIU Local 2015 – the largest SEIU local in the United States, much-less California. In June, she was elected secretary-treasurer of SEIU International, which represents two million members. In politics, some top officials are sometimes described as “the real deal,” and that clearly applies to Verrett. From Chicago’s South Side, Verrett was raised by a grandmother who was a locker room attendant for the Chicago Park District. Verrett worked as an organizer and health care executive in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Michigan, and has chaired SEIU’s national organizing committee. She is based in Los Angeles.

Updated Aug. 9, 2022