April Sims (she/her) is a new member of the LNS Board.
Sims was elected President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO in October 2022 and was sworn in to begin her four-year term in January 2023. She is the first woman to be elected WSLC president and the first Black woman elected to the presidency of an AFL-CIO state federation. As President, Sims is the chief executive officer of the council, supervises all of its activities and staff, and leads Washington’s largest union organization representing more than half a million union members.
Sims’ lived experience is evidence of the power and potential of organized labor. The granddaughter of Louisiana sharecroppers and the daughter of a single mother, Sims has seen the power of unions to change lives. The Great Migration brought Sims’ grandfather to Washington, where his union job provided economic dignity for his family. Her mom’s union job pulled their family out of the cycle of poverty. As a young mother, it was Sims’ union job that allowed her to build economic security – and activated her as a leader in Washington’s labor movement.
As President of the largest labor organization in Washington state, representing the interests of more than 500,000 members in 600 different unions, Sims strongly believes that climate chaos and income inequality are the two existential crises of our generation. She is focusing her tenure at the WSLC on strengthening the labor movement and building a clean energy economy that prioritizes the needs of workers and their families.