Dear ASEA member,
It is with profound gratitude and a heart of service that I share with you news of my resignation as your Executive Director. In the three and a half years I have served in this role, I have been humbled and inspired by the work you do to keep Alaska running. Your dedication to public service and the Alaskans you serve, under some of the most challenging conditions faced by workers, has made my work here at ASEA profoundly meaningful. Most importantly, it shaped and focused my vision for moving our great union forward.
While my departure from ASEA is bittersweet, it is in service to the greater cause of Alaska’s labor movement. Our union sister and current Alaska AFL-CIO president, Joelle Hall, is retiring and is not running for reelection. I plan to run as her successor at next week’s convention. The Alaska AFL-CIO is the largest labor organization in Alaska, representing over 50,000 union members from more than 50 affiliated local and international unions, including ASEA/AFSCME Local 52.
I am proud of the work we have done together at ASEA. When this anti-union Administration sued ASEA to interfere with the union’s internal affairs after Janus, we took them on and won a decisive victory from the Alaska Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. We have grown our organization to more than 8,700 represented public employees. We added an entire bargaining unit to our organization, the Anchorage Municipal Employee’s Association (AMEA), adding an additional 450 employees to our ranks. We secured four strong contracts for each of our bargaining units, include one of the strongest GGU contracts ever negotiated. This year, we passed pension reform in the Legislature for the first time in 21 years, which would be the law of the land now if not for a disappointing veto.
In short, ASEA’s future is strong and bright!
I want you to know that I truly loved serving you, our members, and meeting so many of you along the way. I want to thank the ASEA Executive Board for its faith in me when it hired me in 2023, and for its support in my tenure. I also want to thank the hard-working staff at ASEA, who have dedicated their careers to better the lives of the public employees we represent. It has been a pleasure to work beside them each day. And I am looking forward to continuing our work together as I step into my new role at the Alaska AFL-CIO.
My last day with our organization is September 18th, and I plan to do everything I can to make the transition to a new Executive Director as smooth as possible.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
In solidarity and strength,
Heidi Drygas
Executive Director
