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When he was growing up, Bob Reiter (LAW ’03) got some early exposure to unions—and the need for them. 

His father was a heavy equipment operator who dug sewer lines and worked on deep tunnel projects, while his mother pulled numerous midnight shifts as an emergency room nurse. 

“If my dad wasn’t a union member, I wouldn’t have had that support to go to college,” Reiter says. “As a person exposed to a variety of different work environments, I became passionate about pursuing a job working in labor to help people like my dad and my mom.” 

Now Reiter is arguably one of the most powerful and ubiquitous voices for labor in a city and state that has long served as cornerstones of the movement. 

As the longtime president of the Chicago Federation of Labor—the third-largest central labor council in the country, representing 300 unions and roughly half a million working people—Reiter has successfully fought for labor legislation across the Midwest. In his time that is not spent advocating for public policy and working to elect labor-friendly candidates, he serves on numerous boards representing labor issues. 

Reiter attributes his passion for labor law to the way he was raised. 

He learned the trade early, with his father being an active steward in the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150. After graduating from law school and spending a couple years working at labor firms in the Chicago area, Reiter received a call from a not-so-old Chicago-Kent College of Law classmate who asked him to come work for his dad’s outfit. Local 150’s labor management cooperation committee, otherwise known as the Indiana, Illinois, Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting, needed help with legislation not only in Springfield, Illinois, but in Des Moines, Iowa, and Indianapolis as well. 

Being a labor attorney turned out to require a lot of labor. 

“Bob and I would literally leave at 3 a.m. for a 9 a.m. meeting [in Des Moines] and drive back in the evening. 

And sometimes we’d do it the next day,” says that classmate, Marc Poulos (LAW ’04), who is the executive director of the Indiana-Illinois-Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting. 

While in the car, the two would spend their travel time crafting legislation that could be introduced in other states as well. 

Poulos was able to witness firsthand why Reiter was so effective at connecting with people, not only across the political spectrum but from all walks of life. 

“People say to Bob, ‘Boy, you don’t sound like a lawyer.’ That’s not to say he isn’t as smart as a lawyer—he’s a genuine guy who’s able to talk to working-class people in working-class-people terms,” Poulos says. 

Reiter later worked as a field attorney and organizer for Local 150, before being elected by the Chicago Federation of Labor as its secretary-treasurer in 2008. 

The work intensified, and Reiter knew he’d found a home. 

In 2018 he became president of the organization, and he says over the years he has seen the impact of his work on people like his parents. 

Reiter’s proudest accomplishments include his efforts to help pass the 2016 (later updated in 2023 to the ), which guaranteed paid leave and sick time for most Chicago workers; the 2019 , which requires many employers to provide advance notice of work schedules; and the 2022 Illinois , which offered numerous labor protections. 

“The biggest things are passing ordinances and laws that protect/give workers the ability to take time off and get sick leave, the ability to have predictable scheduling so they have balance in their personal lives,” Reiter says. “My dad had the benefit of a union contract, but not everybody in my family had that benefit. And in my high school days I worked in fast food alongside people much older than me that had families and didn’t have any type of leave benefits.” 

In his “downtime,” Reiter represents labor on a number of significant boards, including the Cook County Health and Hospital System, where he serves as finance chair; Choose Chicago, the region’s primary tourism and marketing agency; and nonprofits including United Way and the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership. 

“Labor law impacts people every day. The majority of people in this country are workers in one way, shape, or form,” Reiter says. “Our network of labor laws and the institutions that support them are critically important to civilization and maintaining civil society, where workers get a shot at the American dream.”

—Tad Vezner