Local activist Brownstein planning to retire

He’s been the voice of Silicon Valley workers for four decades. And now Bob Brownstein will take a step back, easing into “semiretirement” this summer by working part time as an adviser.

Brownstein spent the past 17 years directing policy at Working Partnerships USA. Some of his friends aren’t sure he’s ready to say goodbye yet. But when Brownstein turned 70 last month, he started thinking about his future in what’s become a demanding, yet rewarding career.

“I work very long hours and I was starting to feel it,” Brownstein said.

Brownstein, who hails from the Bronx, burst onto Silicon Valley’s political scene in 1977. A year later, he led an effort to elect San Jose officials by district and to make being a council member a full-time job.

Then he spearheaded a partnership between the city and San Jose State to open the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library. But his advocacy work has made the biggest impact — Brownstein was the force behind a 1998 effort to pay living wages, two campaigns to raise the minimum wage, the city’s rent control law and, recently, an initiative to offer part-time workers more hours.

“He’s been the leading strategist for every major progressive policy initiative in Silicon Valley for over three decades,” said Ben Field, executive director of the South Bay Labor Council. “At 70 that passion is completely unabated and I’m counting on him being around for a good long time.”

Brownstein, who’s most proud of his work on a policy to provide health insurance to kids, says he was inspired by a photo of Franklin Roosevelt that hung in a hardware store owned by his father in the Bronx.

“I asked my father why, and he said it’s because Franklin Roosevelt stood for the little guy,” he said. “So that’s what I started to do in my political life.”