Jigme Ugen

Who is Jigme Ugen?

Jigme Ugen is the first Tibetan refugee to be elected as a labor leader in North America. He is the Executive Vice-President of SEIU-HCMN (Service Employees International Union, Healthcare Minnesota), which has over 17,000 members. SEIU is the largest and fastest growing union in North America with over 2.2 million members.

Ugen studied at St. Augustine’s School and Dr. Graham’s Home in Kalimpong, and later Delhi University, India.

After college, he worked as a copywriter with FCB Ulka, an advertising company in Delhi. He then volunteered with ITBCI (Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Institute), the first Tibetan school outside Tibet, for more than 2 years.

In 2001 Ugen immigrated to the United States. There he worked on the late Senator Paul Wellstone’s re-election campaign in Minnesota. After Senator Wellstone's tragic death in 2002, Ugen went to work for SEIU as an organizer, and then became a lead organizer, a coordinator, and a business representative. Then in 2007, Ugen won election to the office of Executive Vice President. Currently he has the responsibilities of the Union’s Secretary-Treasurer.

He is the current President of RTYC-MN (Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of Minnesota) and has also served as the General Secretary. Over the years, Ugen has been the General Secretary of AFRAM-MN (African American Caucus Minnesota), an elected board member of TakeAction Minnesota and the 2010 US Census Task Force Team. He helped launch GTPN (Global Tibetan Professional Network Minnesota) in Minnesota and served as their first President.

Ugen has been involved in some of the biggest labor organizing campaigns in North America’s history and has worked on several political campaigns in the United States. He has personally led successful victories for numerous local, state and federal candidates. He has been involved in effectively lobbying for March 10th to be proclaimed ‘Tibet Day’ in Minnesota. To their credit, RTYC-MN recently helped establish the first RTYC chapter in Wisconsin. He is nominated as a candidate the North American Chitue.