I didn't know a lot about John Delloro and never knew him personally, but I recently received some news that he passed away from a heart attack, and as I learned more about him and the people's lives that he touched, the impact he made, and the vibrant force that he was in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, I do know that he'll be missed.
Here's a piece that APA's For Progress did on John Delloro earlier this year.
John Delloro was elected National President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), AFL-CIO, the largest and only national organization of Asian American and Pacific Islander union members and working families and recently moderated the historic first National Public Hearing on Asian American and Pacific Islander Workers Rights, which was held in Washington D.C. He has increased youth membership and leadership in national unions.Learn more about John Delloro.
He also works as the Executive Director of the Dolores Huerta Labor Institute of the 130,000 student Los Angeles Community College District, where he oversees programs and labor studies classes that train and prepare students to understand their power as future workers and professionals. Additionally, he is a visiting lecturer in UCLA's Asian American Studies Department, where he teaches regular courses on theories of leadership development and strategy, research methodologies, labor, and current issues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities and also teaches labor studies courses through the LA Trade Technical College. Recenty, he has been appointed by the mayor and approved by city council to sit on the Los Angeles City Taxicab Commission (an industry that employs a large number of south Asian cabdrivers). In addition to his community work, he writes for a national on-line blog for the Asian American Action Fund and the Los Angeles Progressive.
Prior to his current duties, he has worked as a labor organizer for 12 years. He has previously served as a manager of the southwest California area of the 90,000 member SEIU Local 1000, the Union of California State Workers and as a staff director for the acute care hospital division of SEIU Local 399, the Healthcare Employees union. He has also worked as an organizer for the Culinary Union (HERE Local 226) in Las Vegas and AFSCME International organizing Los Angeles Superior Court clerical employees. He was one of the co-founders of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California (PWC). John also currently sits on the Board of Directors of Strategic Concepts in Organizing, Policy and Education (SCOPE), the Legal Advisory Board of the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA) and the Board of Directors of PWC and serves as an appointee on the California Assembly Speaker's Commission on Labor Education.
Largely influenced by his hard-working immigrant parents, he has committed himself to the movement for socioeconomic justice, especially in the AAPI communities, who have the largest economic divide out of all racial groups.
