Maria Somma

     Maria Somma is the President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance and the International Health Care Organizing Coordinator for the United Steelworkers.  Somma has had a long history with organizing starting with her experience as a teenager where she spent a summer at a women’s peace encampment on the outskirts of London next to a US airbase stocked with nuclear weapons.  It was here that Somma met women who served as powerful motivators and mentors to her and sparked her interest in social justice.  Following her summer in the United Kingdom, Somma became an organizer for a student foundation on campus at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. 

     It was in college that she learned her first skills in building an organizing campaign and solidified her commitment to social justice.  Right after college, Somma transitioned to working with mostly low-income families in and around Illinois as a community organizer before heading to the Illinois Nurses Association where she became a union organizer.  Somma spent five years with the Illinois Nurses Association before leaving to take a job with the United Steelworkers where she has worked since 2001. 

     In addition to her responsibilities as President of APALA and an organizer at USW, Somma is a member of the Board of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice and serves as a mentor to younger union organizers.