WASHINGTON — Anna Burger was on her first post-college job less than a month when she staged her first employee walkout.

She had graduated from Penn State with a sociology degree and was working as a social worker in Philadelphia on a nonpermanent basis in a former automotive warehouse.

A rainfall became a downpour one day and water seeped through the walls onto electrical cords.

Less than 24 hours later she organized a picket line to protest working conditions.

It made the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer with her in the middle of the photo.

"The good news was, I ended up not losing my job, I remained active in the union and my dad was quite proud of me," recalled Burger during a recent interview in the downtown Washington offices of 1.8 million member Service Employees International Union, where she serves as secretary-treasurer.

Thirty-three years later, Burger is arguably the most influential woman in the U.S. labor movement — and involved in another walkout.

This one — a new labor organization called Change to Win — includes three unions that walked away from the AFL-CIO this summer, one that left several years ago and three others. More may follow.

Burger, 54, serves as chairwoman of the fledgling 6 million-member group and is planning a Sept. 27 convention in St. Louis to formally establish it as a new labor federation.

A second convention — possibly November in Cincinnati — will formulate strategies for organizing nonunion workers.

REPRESENTING CHANGE

Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which left the AFL-CIO to join the new seven-union coalition, said the presidents of the unions — all men — wanted to select someone who would represent their effort to reach out to women and minorities.

"One of the things we really are trying to stress is the diversity of the labor movement," said Hansen, who described Burger as "a very bright, able spokesperson who particularly cares about the fate of working people."

Jack Cipriani agreed. "The American labor movement needs to have more women in leadership positions," said Cipriani, eastern regional vice president for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "She has a special brand of passion."

She also has the ability to talk about workplace issues from the standpoint of a mother.

Burger raised her 19-year-old daughter, Erin, by bringing her to voter registration drives, demonstrations and press conferences. A 1988 photo of her daughter — at the time only a toddler — shows her on stage at an event lobbying for passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which eventually was signed into law by President Clinton.

"My daughter inspires me, because I think it's important that we leave a strong labor movement for the next generation," she said.

Her parents, both union members, also have been an influence.

When she was growing up, her father was a disabled trucker and her mother worked as a nurse in a nursing home.

Another source of inspiration was a comment she heard more than a decade ago from Elinor Glenn, who spent many years organizing workers in the Los Angeles area.

"She said no woman is worth her salt unless she brings other women along," Burger recalled. "Right now when I think about what I need to do and what can inspire me, it's to make sure we make space for women, for people of color to have roles in our new federation, in our unions, in our meetings. We need to solve the problems they are confronting in their homes and their communities and their workplaces. We need to give them a voice."

Why the split?

The reason for the break with the AFL-CIO was that leaders of the dissident unions thought the federation was putting too much emphasis on supporting candidates for political office and not enough on recruiting new members.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney views the split as detrimental.

"It is a real tragedy for working people," Sweeney observed at a pre-Labor Day news conference. "And you can be sure it has led to the popping of champagne corks at the White House, at Wal-Mart corporate headquarters and on Wall Street. For decades, one of the tactics that management has used against workers is divide and conquer. They know that when workers unite, they're stronger. The same goes for unions."

For Burger, the split does not mean that organized labor will lose its unified voice on social issues such as an increase in the minimum wage, the need for good employer-provided health insurance coverage and the right of workers to form unions.

"My goal is that working people speak for working people in this country and that I can give them a voice," she said. "And hopefully John Sweeney and Anna Burger oftentimes will speak on the same issues together."

Sweeney, for his part, moderated his tone in a brief interview after his news conference. He said that he has met privately with Burger since the breakup occurred at the AFL-CIO's July convention and he would do his "damnedest" to ensure that they speak with one voice on important issues.

"I've known Anna Burger a long time and, of course, I would be looking for the opportunity to work together with her," he said.

UP THROUGH THE RANKS

Both rose through the ranks of SEIU to leadership positions — Sweeney in New York City, organizing janitors and doormen, Burger as a state official in Harrisburg, Pa.

Burger said her current position is a natural outgrowth of her original occupation as a social worker.

"I was doing social work because I believed that is the way to change peoples' lives," she said. "I realized that the real way to change peoples' lives was to work for the union full time and actually organize workers."

By her own count, Burger has been arrested a number of times in Washington, D.C., and in New York City for involvement with the Justice for Janitors' organizing campaign and for civil disobedience.

Burger is a much less controversial figure than the president of her union, Andrew Stern. It was Stern who late last year publicly called for more union mergers and criticized some unions for failing to organize nonunion workers.

Stern's comments helped spur a series of reforms at the AFL-CIO that have led to more than 100 layoffs at its Washington headquarters and implemented a dues rebate program for unions engaged in organizing.