Johanna Puno Hester

Johanna Puno Hester

San Diego, California

Johanna Puno Hester is the assistant executive director of UDW/AFSCME Local 3930, a union of more than 118,000 in-home care providers and 15,000 family child care providers throughout California. UDW members are primarily women and people of color, caring for our state’s low-income children, seniors and people with disabilities.

Elected International vice president in 2012, Hester began her career with AFSCME as lead organizer for the Organizing and Field Services Department in 1999, organizing 2,000 recreation and park assistants in Los Angeles. She worked in several organizing campaigns, including the University of Maryland campaign, New Mexico University campaign and other organizing campaigns before she came to UDW in 2008.

In 2020, Hester led a historic organizing effort of more than 40,000 family child care providers in California – the largest organizing campaign in the country. She continues her community organizing through the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the first and only national organization of Asian Pacific American union members to advance worker, immigrant and civil rights.