Arlene Holt Baker (born 1951) is an American trade union activist and labor leader. A staff assistant with the AFL-CIO since 1995, she was appointed Executive Vice-President of the labor federation by the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 2007 and won re-election in 2009. She became the first African American in the federation's history to serve as an officer. Early life and union career Holt Baker was born in 1951 in Fort Worth, Texas. Her father, W.S. Leslie, was a laborer and her mother, Louise Leslie, was a domestic worker. She was one of seven children. Holt Baker became an organizer with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in the late 1980s. She began organizing public sector employees for the state of California, and eventually was hired as an international union staff representative. She rose to become an "area director" in California, overseeing AFSCME's collective bargaining efforts for public employee locals and leading the union's political operations for statewide and federal races. AFL-CIO career In 1995, John Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO, unseating incumbent Thomas R. Donahue. Sweeney's running mate, Linda Chavez-Thompson, was elected the labor federation's Executive Vice-President. Chavez-Thompson, a local AFSCME leader from Texas, hired Holt Baker as her executive assistant. Holt Baker was given a number of assignments in addition to her duties as an executive assistant to Chavez-Thompson. In 1998, she led the AFL-CIO's successful effort to defeat California Proposition 226, which would have denied dues check-off to public employees belonging to unions and required all union members in the state to annually give their assent before any portion of their dues could be used for political purposes. Holt Baker's success in leading this campaign caused her to be named an executive assistant to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney in 1999. She held this position until her appointment as Executive Vice-President. Among her duties as assistant to Sweeney was her role as AFL-CIO liaison to religious groups. Holt Baker's primary duty as Sweeney's assistant, however, was as director of the AFL-CIO's Voice@Work campaign. A precursor effort to American Rights at Work and Working America, the Voice@Work project was designed to build community support for union organizing efforts. As a top aide to Sweeney, Holt Baker was repeatedly tapped to head up AFL-CIO political efforts. In 2000, she led a coalition of labor unions which registered voters and mobilized supporters in Pennsylvania, an important