JAVIER MORILLO

Javier Morillo-Alicea is the president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26, which unites close to 6,000 property service workers in the Twin Cities metro area. He is also recognized in Minnesota as a political strategist and appears regularly on local political talk shows as a progressive commentator. For his work as an advocate for immigrants and immigration reform, Morillo was awarded the Progressive States Network’s 2008 Progressive Leaders Award for State Legislative Immigration Campaigns. In 2010, Morillo took a six-month leave of absence from the local union to serve as SEIU International’s National Immigration Campaign Director, where he helped establish a political and communications infrastructure to deepen the union’s internal and external engagement on the fight to win federal immigration reform.

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Morillo is also active in electoral politics. A progressive opinion leader in Minnesota, he is a regular political commentator on public broadcasting’s political talk show “Almanac” as well as ABC’s local affiliate Sunday morning show, “At Issue.” In the realm of public policy, Morillo has served as Mayoral appointee to the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation and Human Rights Commission. In 2012, he was appointed by Governor Dayton to serve on the Sunset Advisory Commission of the Minnesota Legislature. In 2013 Morillo was honored by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party with the Paul Wellstone Lifetime Commitment to Labor Award.

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Morillo was previously a historian and anthropologist, teaching courses in Latin American History, Comparative Colonial Cultures, and Globalization at Carleton and Macalester Colleges. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Yale University. He grew up in Puerto Rico, the son of a military dad and mom who, to this day, push him to succeed. He lives on the West Side of St. Paul with his partner of eighteen years.