30 Facts About Linda Chavez-Thompson

Linda Chavez-Thompson was born on August 3,1944 and is a second-generation Mexican-American and union leader.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected the executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO in 1995 and served until September 21,2007.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2012 and served as a member of the board of trustees of United Way of America.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Texas in the 2010 election.

Linda Chavez-Thompson's father was a sharecropper, and she was one of seven children.

Linda Chavez-Thompson dropped out of high school at age 16 to help support her family, and married at the age of 20.

Linda Chavez-Thompson gave birth to a daughter in 1964 and a son in 1976.

Linda Chavez-Thompson divorced her first husband in 1984 and the next year married Robert Thompson, the long-time president of the Amalgamated Transit Local 694 in San Antonio.

Linda Chavez-Thompson died in 1993 of complications of lung cancer.

In 1967, Chavez-Thompson became a secretary on the staff of the Construction Laborer's Local 1253 in Lubbock, Texas Laborers' International Union of North America.

Linda Chavez-Thompson enjoyed the job so much, she became a staff organizer for the North Texas Laborers District Council.

Linda Chavez-Thompson's first organizing campaign was to help city workers in Lubbock form a union.

Linda Chavez-Thompson then went to work for in San Antonio in 1973 as an assistant business agent.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was promoted to business agent, then was appointed executive director of Local 2399, AFSCME's San Antonio affiliate.

Linda Chavez-Thompson became a fixture on local TV and in local newspapers.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected to the executive boards of the San Antonio Central Labor Council and the Texas AFL-CIO.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected a vice president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement in 1986.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was first elected an international vice president of AFSCME in 1988.

In 1993, Linda Chavez-Thompson became the first Hispanic woman elected to the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO after John Sweeney ran for the presidency of the labor federation in 1995.

Sweeney subsequently offered to create the post of executive vice-president and asked Linda Chavez-Thompson to be his running mate for that position.

Linda Chavez-Thompson's hope was that Donahue backers might support creating the position if Donahue had already been defeated.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected to fill the position on a voice vote, and Sweeney declared her elected by acclamation.

Linda Chavez-Thompson spent most of 1996 on the road, acting as the public face of the AFL-CIO and the Sweeney administration's primary shock trooper.

Linda Chavez-Thompson helped with the AFL-CIO's electoral efforts in the 1996 federal elections, and helped with the federation's 1996 push to increase the minimum wage.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was instrumental in the federation's push for reform in 1996 and 1997, and helped forge a new majority on the AFL-CIO Executive Council which later adopted a radical change in the federation's immigrant policy in 2000.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was active in the AFL-CIO's federal electoral efforts in 2004.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was re-elected a vice chair of the DNC for four-year terms until she stepped down in 2012.

On September 11,2007, Linda Chavez-Thompson announced she would retire from her post as AFL-CIO executive vice-president on September 21,2007.

On January 4,2010, Linda Chavez-Thompson announced she was running for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and on March 2 she won her party's nomination.