Hi John,
My name is Tommy Carden, and I’m the new Director of UE Research and Education Fund. This is a challenging time to fight for workplace justice, but there’s no place I’d rather be than right here with you. Because I know that UEREF was built for this moment. When we fight together, we win. On this Giving Tuesday, can we count on you to fight with us?
The next four years are going to test our movement like never before. The law is rarely on workers’ side, and it will likely be even less so under the new administration. Employers will feel emboldened to take from workers at every turn. The “business as usual” of many unions — where higher-ups negotiate contracts and workers wait and hope — is not going to cut it. Luckily, UE has always been different. Through UEREF, we invest in rank-and-file workers, educating them, building their skills, and developing them into powerful leaders.
I feel honored to step into this role at this moment. Growing up in a union neighborhood in Chicago, I experienced first hand how organized labor can win a good life for working people. But as an adult, I realized that the unionism of the past couldn’t match the realities of the present. As an organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice, I saw how bosses at third-party logistics companies in Illinois used racism to exploit workers and held immigrants hostage by threatening to expose their undocumented status. Warehouse workers are crucial to global supply chains, yet they’re practically invisible. I knew they deserved better and that worker self-organization is the surest path to liberation.
Earlier this year, while I was still with WWJ, I met two workers who were fed up with the health and safety issues, harassment, and discrimination they and other immigrants faced at their warehouse. The bosses forced people to work long hours in dangerous conditions, and held their immigration status over them to keep them quiet. We approached their situation the way UEREF always does for workers across North America: we taught the workers themselves the skills they needed to self-organize. With WWJ’s support, these two workers developed their political education and organizing skills and formed a committee with more co-workers. This committee learned how to have difficult conversations with fellow workers who fear retaliation. By pulling in workers from multiple facilities, they organized a march on the boss of 150 workers to bring their grievances to management. It was incredibly powerful to see these workers find their voices and stand up for themselves without fear through collective action. I’m excited to bring my experience empowering workers into my new role at UEREF.
John, UEREF’s commitment to worker self-organization is what makes us the movement for this moment. No matter what legal actions elected officials throw at us — from eroding environmental protections to undermining collective bargaining rights to criminalizing immigration — we already know how to fight back through worker education and empowerment.
We need your help to bring our organizing training to workers across North America, whose skill-building is more important than ever. Stand with us to develop worker-leaders ready to fight for justice in the year ahead.
In solidarity,
Tommy Carden
Director, UE Research and Education Fund
