Organization and Structure
The Washtenaw County Worker Center (WCWC) is lead by our Executive Board. The Executive Board has five committees: Executive, Finance, Fund-Raising, Organizing and Programming. The Organizing Committee is in charge of community outreach efforts, worker trainings (e.g., our new Green Cleaning training for household workers), and the logistics of our household workers survey. The Programming Committee is responsible for planning our membership meetings, and developing our campaign goals and strategies.
The Executive Board
The members of the Executive Board are chosen annually at a monthly Workers' Rights Committee meeting, which are open to all members of the WCWC. Board members are nominated and approved by members.
The Executive Board is a diverse group of community and university members that coordinate monthly meetings, projects, fund raising, and outreach. Our board members fill many roles, functioning as volunteer staff, trainers, advocates, and researchers.
However, we do not work alone. We draw upon the resources and advice of local allies and organizations such as ROC-Michigan, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, the University of Michigan’s Labor Studies Center and National Center for Institutional Diversity, the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO), the Graduate Employees’ Organization (both of the University of Michigan), and United Auto Workers Local 849 (Ypsilanti).
We also work with national organizations such as ROC-United, Domestic Workers United, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Interfaith Worker Justice network of workers’ centers, and the AFL-CIO.
Please see our Partners page for brief descriptions of, and links to, these partner organizations.
Executive Board Member Bios
Alicia Alvarez joined the Board of WCWC in 2008 and is currently Secretary of the Board. During 2007-2008, she worked with law students who made know-your-rights presentations at WCWC members meetings. Alicia is a clinical professor at the University of Michigan Law School. She directs the Urban Communities Clinic, doing transactional legal work for community-based organizations in Detroit and throughout southeastern Michigan. She has spent her entire legal career working on issues affecting low-income communities. She has worked in legal services and for a public interest law office in Chicago. She directed the Community Development Clinic at DePaul University before moving to Michigan in 2006, working with community-based organizations including several workers centers. Alicia serves on the board of the WCWC because she wants to work toward greater economic justice in our country and sees the workers center as a way to do that.
Danilo Gutierrez is one of the founding members of the WCWC and currently serves on our Programming Committee. He is the ESL Community Program Coordinator at First United Methodist Church in Ypsilanti. Danilo is an advisory board member for The Nicaragua Project -- El Puente: Capital to Bridge the Divide. The Nicaragua Project is a fundraising mission to develop sustainable economic development in Catarina, Nicaragua. Danilo is also involved in the work of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR). He has been involved in organizing community events and activities in the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area for the past 20 years, including past involvement with Ann Arbor-Juigalpa Sister City Committee and Festival Latino/Latinos Unidos, Inc.
Jason Kosnoski has been on the WCWC Board since 2007. He is currently Co-Chair of the Executive Committee. He is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan—Flint, where he teaches political theory and labor studies. Prior to this he taught political science to both college students and working union members in community colleges, labor education programs, and four-year institutions. He helped to found COCAL (the Coalition for Contingent Academic Labor), an organization dedicated to advocacy for part-time faculty. He has worked closely with the Hotel and Restaurant Worker’s Union (HERE) on organizing and community campaigns in New York City and California. In the past, he has been active in JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice), Jobs With Justice, and was a participant in the Union Summer Program of the AFL-CIO. He holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research.
Grace Helms Kotre has been on the WCWC Board since the Summer of 2008, and currently serves on the Fundraising Committee and outreach to faith communities. She serves as the Program Coordinator of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice (ICPJ), a local, grassroots non-profit organization that unites people of different faiths and backgrounds to work together on pressing peace and justice issues. She is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work where she was involved with community groups including Social Welfare Action Alliance, U-M's Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, U-M's Program on Intergroup Relations, Migrant Health Promotion, and Darfur Action: STAND. Grace currently volunteers with the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (WICIR), and cares deeply about the issues facing the immigrant community and low-income workers. She believes that peace and justice must begin in our own communities.
Minsu Longiaru has been involved in the WCWC since its formation, and currently serves on its programming committee. Since June 2008, she has been ROC-Michigan’s Coordinator. Prior to that, she was staff attorney for the University of Michigan Law School’s Poverty Law Outreach Program, where she provided free direct legal services and advocacy on behalf of low-income immigrants in Washtenaw County. Prior to coming to Michigan, Minsu was a Fulbright Garcia-Robles Fellow in Mexico City, and a Skadden Fellow and Staff Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, where she provided direct legal services to immigrant workers and day laborers, and collaborated with workers centers on advocacy campaigns. Minsu is a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School.
Lynn Nybell has been on our Board since the Spring of 2009, and currently serves on our Organizing Committee. She is professor of Social Work at Eastern Michigan University. She has an M.S.W. and a Ph.D degree in Anthropology and Social Work from University of Michigan. She has served on the Executive Committee and Negotiating Team of the EMU-AAUP, which serves as the bargaining unit for EMU faculty.
Greg Pratt has been involved with the WCWC since March of 2007 and currently serves on its Fundraising Committee. Greg was instrumental in the development and execution of the WCWC’s first major worker survey, training and coordinating the students and WCWC members who did the interviews. He is committed to the mission of the WCWC because he believes that, contrary to the way the local, state, and national economic structures are currently arranged, all workers deserve a larger share of the wealth created by their labor. Greg is a union organizer for AFT-Michigan (American Federation of Teachers) and a recent graduate of the University Of Michigan School Of Social Work. He has also been active in the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights in Washtenaw County.
Ian Robinson has been involved in the WCWC since its formation in 2006. He is Co-Chair of the Executive Committee, and also serves on the Organizing and Fundraising committees. He has worked for many years with U.S., Canadian and Mexican academics and union activists who seek to build stronger, more democratic unions and labor movements. Ian is a Lecturer and Research Scientist in the Residential College’s Social Theory and Practice program and in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan. His degrees are from Queen’s University in Canada (B.A.), Oxford University (M.Phil.), and Yale University (Ph.D.). He helped to organize and lead the Lecturers' Employee Organization (LEO) -- the union of nontenure-track faculty at the university -- and is currently the Chair of its Solidarity Committee and a member of its Bargaining Committee.
Kathy Wyatt has been on our Board since 2007, and currently serves on our Organizing Committee. She is also Vice-Chair for Outreach and Membership for the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. Kathy is a member of many community groups dedicated to improving the quality of life for all of the residents of Washtenaw County, including (but are not limited to), SHOC (The Spanish Healthcare Outreach Collaborative), the Ypsilanti NAACP, and the Ann Arbor NAACP. She was the campaign coordinator for the Washtenaw County Democratic Party during the last election, and worked very hard to elect Obama and change the direction of this Country. Kathy is currently the Executive Assistant to Washtenaw County Sheriff, Jerry L. Clayton, the first African American Sheriff in Washtenaw County. She is committed to social, economic, and political justice.
Staff Bios
Maya Barak has been involved with the WCWC on and off since the summer of 2008 and is currently a lead organizer for the center’s outreach and training activities. She recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Social Anthropology and Peace and Social Justice, and is working on her M.A. in Criminology at Eastern Michigan University where she is also a Graduate Assistant. Her specific interests include worker and immigrant rights and economic and urban inequality.