April Sims was elected Secretary Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO by its affiliated unions in December 2018, beginning her four-year term on Jan. 5, 2019. She is the first woman of color and the first black person to be elected as a WSLC executive officer.

Sims firmly believes in the power of working people organizing together, and has dedicated her working life to affirming that power. For her, the importance of union membership is personal; it was her mother’s union position as a psychiatric security attendant at Western State Hospital that allowed her family to move off welfare and build a sense of financial security. A life-long resident of Tacoma, April lives with her husband, two daughters, and 100-pound chocolate lab in the gritty city she’s proud to call home.