ORGANIZER--HIGHLY EXPERIENCED--LABOR/COMMUNITY

Mike Wilzoch

Cell: (720) 238-0000 Email: wilzoch@yahoo.com

PURPOSE

Since my teen-age years when I worked full-time as a community organizer with the United Farm Workers Union, I've dedicated myself
to the struggle to win social and economic justice locally, nationally, and globally. It is my mission to secure a regular or consulting position in which I can apply my skills, experience and dedication to this vital work.

SKILL SET/EXPERIENCE INCLUDES:

► Fluent Spanish speaker (but not bi-literate). Now beginning to learn Arabic.

► Community Organizing: Research; campaign planning; leadership development; action/event mobilization; coalition building; fund-raising; education. Based
on Alinsky model.

► Political Organizing: Relationship building; issue advocacy; campaign support & GOTV; educating & involving workers/families in the process.

► Union Organizing—New members: Research; building & leading a team; developing worker committees; managing legal issues; house visits; coordinating
strategy through to settlement.

► Union Organizing—Internal: Leadership development; member education & mobilization; changing the culture from the "servicing" to "organizing" model where workers exercise more power in the worksite; training staff to develop these skills.

► Negotiating Contracts: Mobilizing workers and developing external leverage; table strategy; training Committees; proposal development; lead negotiator & 2nd chair.

► Actions: Developing as a team creative worksite & community actions—to hunger strikes & mass civil disobedience. Using the arts (teatro, puppets, billboards, music…) to build emotional power in the events.

► Press Work: Message development; training both local leader and rank & file spokespeople; advisories; persuasion calls; developing press relationships.

► Written & Verbal Communication: With members, community allies,employers, government officials; developing leaflets, website content, newspaper adds, position papers, detailed plans, proposals & reports.

► Advocacy involving Government and Institutions: Representing and advocating workers' rights with the National Labor Relations Board, the Dept. of Labor, and Unemployment Dept. I've led or been involved with a variety of efforts advocating, negotiating, and/or demonstrating toward various police agencies, the TSA, Homeland Security, and ICE. I've also dealt with several school boards on a variety of issues.

► Health Trust: Service as a Trustee of a Taft-Hartley Trust Fund.

► Leadership: Leading and working with the community, staff and workers; developing a team with clear assignments, accountability & support—guided by a defined mission with specific plans to accomplish it.

WHO I AM—WHAT I'VE DONE

Most of my adult life has been engaged in the movement for social justice, with the majority of that time spent in the labor movement. After my 3 years with the UFW, I worked in a variety paying positions (laborer, salesperson, car lot attendant) but continued to act as a volunteer mobilizing support for the Coors, Nestle and Libby boycotts of the '70's and '80's; I was a member of CISPES (Committee in Support of the People of El Salvador); and have been active in a number of school and community issues.

For 23 years, I worked for theService Employees International Union (SEIU) – in Colorado's Local 105 as a worker & community organizer at the outset of the nation's first Justice for Janitors campaign in 1986, then later as a representative for 1,500 Health Care workers at Kaiser, and finally as President of the Local until 2000. We were
active politically – a sought-after endorsement and a leader in community issues, particularly on immigration reform. Under my leadership, we organized 1,000 janitors in the Denver suburbs, resulting in first-time-ever basic benefits and raises, while significantly increasing our leverage at the bargaining table to win future gains for all metro Denver janitors, including our 1,000 Downtown members.

During this time, I was also a member and later a Co-Chair of an active Colorado Jobs with Justice Chapter, and helped to organize a revival of the Denver Area Labor Federation (DALF).

My wife's health required us to move to a warmer climate and, in March of 2000, I became Deputy Director of SEIU Local 2028 in San Diego. Immediately upon arrival, I coordinated a historic month-long janitors' strike which received wide public support and helped build the prominence of labor movement there. I also assisted the Executive Director with a variety of duties until 2002, when the jurisdiction of the Building Service Division (janitors) was transferred to statewide Local 1877.

I served as the Coordinator for the San Diego office of Local 1877 for five years. From 2000 to 2007, my leadership with both Locals allowed me to work closely with members, ID, recruit, and develop leaders while directing the work and training our staff. Together, we coordinated our efforts with other Unions and many community and political allies to ensure that the janitors in our County were "invisible no more." Our focus was to build leadership among our members and promote them as the face
and voice of our Union, and forge real solidarity with other working people and a broad cross-section of the community: students, immigrants, faith based leaders and organizations, community leaders and organizations, progressives and politicos. I worked closely with the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, the AFSC, and with branches of both PICO (San Diego Organizing Project) and the Gamiliel Foundation (Justice Overcoming Borders), especially on immigrant rights advocacy, among many others.

I then worked for 2 years with SEIU-UHW as an organizer at Children's Hospital in San Diego, until the Local was trusteed (taken over) by the International, amidst much controversy which continues today.

As my mother grows older, my daughter wanted a child (we have a new grandson), and most of our life-long friends are here, we returned to our home town where I worked as a full time unpaid organizer for Faithful United/Fieles Unidos—an organization dedicated to both restoring the desecrated mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the church which bears her name, and the legacy of a people who fought for decades to command respect in the schools, government, business, and the Catholic Church.

WORK HISTORY-SUMMARY

After my 1972 high school graduation at age 16, I worked for a year as a laborer for a mystic Catholic family seeking to provide opportunities besides the mines in the back woods of Kentucky.

From 1973 through 1976, I worked in Denver and a bit in Los Angeles as a Community Organizer and briefly as Director for the Denver UFW, which set the direction of my life.

From 1977 into 1981, I worked as a Lot Assistant for Cox Motors in Grand Junction CO and a Laborer and Foreman with Supreme Concrete in Denver. As the only juero on an all Mexicano crew who hailed mostly from Chuatemoc, Chihuahua, my fluency in Spanish accelerated and I became immersed in the life & culture of low wage undocumented workers.

From 1981 to 1986, I worked in a couple of sales positions.

From August 1986 through April 2009, I worked to build a progressive labor movement, which would ideally be integrated with advocacy from the community to the global level. I continued my community organizing work later in 2010 & 2011 with Faithful United/Fieles Unidos.

I have focused on providing for my new grandson and dealing with illness in my family to the present.

MY COMPLETE WORK HISTORY (WITH SOME ADDED ITEMS):

6/11 to the present—Caring for ill family members; supporting my daughter through her pregnancy, aiding the family,and caring for my grandson.

7/10—6/11—Unpaid Organizer with Faithful United/Fieles Unidos

4/09—11/10 Unemployed. Much of this time was spent caring for an ailing wife who nearly died a few days before Christmas 09. She has recovered, and her health issues are manageable.

2007—2009 Union Rep/Organizer SEIU UHW-West – San Diego

2002—2007 Coordinator of SEIU Local 1877 – San Diego

2000—2002 Deputy Director of SEIU Local 2028 – San Diego

1997—2000 President of SEIU Local 105 – Denver

1986—1997 Organizer and Union Rep – SEIU Local 105 – Denver

1982—1986 Salesman - Bee Bee Que Foods & Sales Associate - K & W Windows - Denver

1978—1982 Laborer and Foreman - Supreme Concrete - Denver

1976—1978 Lot Assistant, Cox Motors – Grand Junction, Colorado

1973—1976 Community Organizer – United Farm Workers Union – Denver & LA

1972—1973 Laborer – Daly Family home, garden, hog pens, thrift store in Davisburg, Ky.

1972 Graduated Cherry Creek High School – Englewood, Colorado

1969 Assisted running a Catholic Summer School in Mobile, Al.

1965—1969 Studied with the Maryknoll Fathers in Denver to become a missionary until the Seminary closed shortly after I enrolled

12/09/1955 Born oldest of 4 sons and 1 daughter to Wilzoch family in Miami, Florida.

Paternal grandparents emigrated to the US (Canton, Ohio) from Nazi Germany in 1933.

REFERENCES (CONTACT INFO AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST)

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes—World renowned author, poet, and social justice activist

Christian Ramirez—National Coordinator Human Migration and Mobility, AFSC

Norma Chavez-Peterson—ACLU Community Engagement and Organizing Director—San Diego

Dr. John Borsos—Vice President of the National Union of Health Care Workers (NUHW)

Rabbi Laurie Coskey—Director of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice of San Diego

Lucila Conde—Rank & File leader of the UHW campaign at Children's Hospital, San Diego

Francisco Pineda—Rank & File Executive Board member of SEIU Local 1877, San Diego

Peter Zsciesche—Director of the Employee Rights Center of San Diego

Linda Mulligan—National AFL-CIO Representative

Richard Rosenblatt—Colorado Labor Attorney representing several Unions

Donald Cohen—Chair of In the Public Interest and Co-founder of the Center for Policy Initiatives in San Diego (Helped to found FRESC in Denver)

Additional references available upon request.