President of the Chicago Federation of Labor, Jorge Ramirez, to Receive Rerum Novarum Award

Jorge Ramirez, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, has been selected to represent the labor sector for the 2011 Rerum Novarum Awards. Joining Ramirez as an honoree are John McDonough, president and CEO of the Chicago Blackhawks, and Dan McLaughlin, Mayor of Orland Park and executive director of the Plumbing Council of Chicagoland. Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I. will present the Rerum Novarum Awards at the 21st Annual Seminary Salute to Labor, Business and Government to be held on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 in the Plumbers’ Union Hall.
 
The Rerum Novarum Awards, presented by St. Joseph College Seminary at Loyola University of Chicago, honor men and women in labor, business and government who have proven outstanding in their support of the following ideals: respect for the dignity of the human being and human labor, the right to organize and the right to a living wage. According to Ramirez, receiving the Rerum Novarum Award is a huge honor. “The spirit of the Rerum Novarum Award has such strong significance to all who fight for justice and fairness in the workplace. To receive it is a huge honor that I am tremendously humbled by.”
 
The son of Mexican immigrants, Ramirez is the first Hispanic president in the Chicago Federation of Labor’s 114-year history. His father, Ruben Ramirez, a butcher from Mexico, organized meatpacking plant workers in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and the Randolph/Fulton Market in the 1960s. While Ramirez attended Chicago-Kent College of Law, he worked on his father’s union local as an organizer and union representative. However, it was his charisma and skill in the political arena that brought him to the top ranks in Chicago’s organized labor industry.

In 2001, Ramirez was appointed to serve as commissioner of the Legislative Redistricting Commission by the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and in 2003, became deputy campaign manager for Mayor Richard M. Daley’s 2003 re-election campaign.
 
Prior to joining the Chicago Federation of Labor in 2006, Ramirez was elected vice-president and served as executive director of Local 1546 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents nearly 30,000 members in Chicago and throughout Illinois.
 
Ramirez was elected president of CFL in 2010, previously serving as secretary-treasurer. As President, Ramirez represents 300 unions including more than 500,000 workers.
 
Ramirez received a law degree from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1993 with a double major in marketing and computer information systems, and was a four-year letterman in football. He currently resides in Lemont with his wife Catrina and four sons Marino, John Paul, Antonio and Santino.