Stella Williams
Executive Vice President at Large
Stella Williams is Executive Vice President at Large for the SEIU Florida Healthcare Union. She works 2 jobs—at Miami Shores Nursing Home and Hialeah Shores Nursing Center—and has been working in nursing homes in the South Florida area since 1975. She has served on the Boards of SEIU Local 1115 and SEIU 1199 Florida and is now serving as Executive Vice President at Large and Member Organizing Coordinator of the new SEIU Florida Healthcare Union.
Williams is firmly dedicated to the belief that the strength of our health care workers' voice lies in solid leadership development. In 1980, she became shop steward at Miami Shores Nursing Home and helped lead the fight to win the first pension plan for nursing home workers, which directly affected workers at her facility and six others.
As Statewide Chair of the Dignity Leadership Council and founder of the DLC Internship program, she conducts training sessions statewide for rank and file members on such topics as developing communication skills, building strong membership bases and participation, political activism, COPE education, work site structure, grievances and shop steward training. She also participates in co-training programs with organizations such as Wellstone Action and Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, designed to train activists and strengthen leadership in the areas of political advocacy and grassroots organizing and to provide popular political & economic education. She has been recognized by SEIU and the United Way for her leadership development programs.
Williams possesses a keen ability to mobilize SEIU members and was a key driving force in successfully lobbying Florida's law makers to support safe staffing ratios, thus bringing Florida's national ranking from the worst to the best caregiver-to-resident standards. Similarly, during election year 2000, she mobilized large numbers of SEIU 1199 Florida members to work full time on voter education and voter turn out campaigns. And again in 2004, she recruited one of the largest pools of SEIU Heroes in the country to work on election and voter campaigns, coordinating their activities and training more than 100 volunteers involved in federal, state and local elections.
In addition to the numerous appearances she has made in Tallahassee before legislators in the House and Senate, she has appeared on the Michael Putney Show, CNN, and PBS affiliate WPBT. She has been a guest speaker at the Long Term Care Division Conference at the SEIU 2004 Convention and Unite for Dignity.
Though deeply committed to her advocacy and mission in SEIU, she continues to find time to be with her 5 children and enjoy her seven grandchildren.