Fabricio M. Rodriguez
www.ThatFinalStraw.com
Fabricio.Rodriguez(at)gmail.com
BIO
Below, you will find an overview of my professional experiences, leadership roles, and the education that opened up so many doors for me. Though I could not be more proud of these factors, I want to be clear about the circumstances that led here.
Having grown up on the Acoma-Laguna Reservation in Grants, New Mexico, I dropped out of high school in order to join my father as a miner. As a miner, I learned the struggles of working people first hand. I left the mines to dedicate my life to fighting for poor, marginalized and working-people.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Philadelphia Security Officers Union – Philadelphia, PA January 2010
Campaign: Effort to win a first contract.
Jobs with Justice - Philadelphia, PA February 2004 – December 2009
Executive Director
Significant campaigns:
Philadelphia Security Officers Union (PSOU) June 2009 – October 2009
Campaign: Designed and coordinated the union certification election for the independent, Philadelphia Security Officers Union. This campaign included an inside messaging, political campaign, a media campaign, a web campaign, door-to-door community canvas, door-to-door worker house visits, organized a prayer event to engage people of faith and a massive volunteer effort during the election.
Results: The inside campaign effectively neutralized the employers anti-union message while my media campaign garnered more than a dozen local, regional and national media outlets. I utilized my political relationships to pass a pro-union resolution through city council a week before the union vote and also gathered supportive letters from Congressman Robert Brady, PA Representative Babbette Josephs, PA Representative Mark Cohen, Councilman Bill K. Greenlee, Councilwoman Maria Quinones – Sanchez, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds-Brown, prominent local clergy, hundreds of Philadelphia tax payers. I coordinated with volunteers to create a door-to-door canvas that gathered hundreds of petitions of campaign supporters. Over the length of the election campaign, I coordinated with dozens of volunteers who donated hundreds of hours worth of work.
Results: My campaign won an election to form the PSOU as won against the largest private security firm in the nation.
Philadelphia Officers and Workers Rising (POWR) Campaign September 2005 – June 2009
Campaign: This “worker center” effort at University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Park View Towers and Philadelphia Museum of Art used leadership development to build direct-action campaigns around work-place issues. This innovative campaign took activist workers from these sites (AlliedBarton and Oakley Security Services employees), and led them up a progressive leadership structure. Once a group of worker passed a leadership threshold, they were given new opportunities and new challenges, each level offered better results from their campaign work. I worked with the local organization Media Mobilizing Project to produce two widely viewed films about the campaign.
Results: Union level wages and benefits for 80 guards at the University of Pennsylvania (this pattern was extended to 50 more guards at the adjacent Drexel University), up to three days of paid sick leave at Temple University and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A dozen workers that had their wages stolen by their employer received $30,000 in a class action law suit filed by Peter Winebrake LLC. The two films have been viewed by more than 14,000 people. The campaign was featured in the Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Weekly, Philadelphia Metro, City Paper, Fox New, National Public Radio WHYY, The Nation Magazine web-site, GRIT TV with Laura Flanders, Labor Notes Magazine, the Philadelphia Tribune and the Defenastrator.
“Rosa Marches With Us” Campaign June 2004 – November 2005
Campaign: This two part effort involved helping the Transportation Workers Union (TWU) Local 234 message their effort to win a dedicated pot of state money to support public transit and to build public awareness and support for a good union contract. By using the Jobs with Justice web-based mass communication system and media work, I was able to link the need for public transit funding and the need for a decent union contract together. When the TWU Local 234 went on strike in October of that year, the effort of Jobs with Justice led to an out pouring of public support. Thirty local community, faith and political leaders signed onto a Jobs with Justice support letter on the eve of the strike, I organized a 200 person support rally and a supportive prayer vigil at Arch St. United Methodist Church. I developed a union marketing campaign which linked the Memphis bus boycott and the struggle of African-American transit workers together. Part of this effort included the public distribution of 10,000 full-color, civil rights themed, educational leaflets.
Results: Thousands of Philadelphia residents signed our online petition. This public pressure helped bring the strike to end after 9 days.
Other notable campaigns:
- Organized 12 Hazleton, PA faith leaders to speak out against the anti-immigrant law passed in, 2006. The law was eventually ruled as unconstitutional in a ACLU case.
- Won $110,000 class-action law suit for activist workers from the Moyer Meat Processing Plant in Sauderton, PA., 2008
- Mobilized hundreds of people to pressure Governor Edward Rendell to make Blue Cross Health Insurance Company to put more of the company’s surplus into the state funded Adult Basic a SCHIP. The campaign contributed to this statewide victory, 2005.
- Mobilized more than 1,000 people to three events during the Wal-Mart Week of Action, 2005
- Co-organized a campaign with Sweat-Free Communities to make Pennsylvania the first verifiably Sweat-Free state in the nation. This insures that no products produced in sweatshop conditions will be purchased by Pennsylvania, 2008.
Education and Action
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 2000-2002
BA in Economics
No More Prison Campaign
Overview: Lead student coalition in a campaign to force our campus food provider, Sodexho Marriot, to end its investment in private prisons.
Results: The campaign which resulted in a civil disobedience sit-in and building occupation is credited with the $10 million divestment later that year.
Coalition of Immokali Workers… (Boycott Taco Bell)
Overview: Lead student organization to pressure campus administration to adopting a code of conduct that included workers rights provisions for all university purchases
Results: Due to this effort Arizona State University became one of the first campuses in the nation to observe the boycott of the tomatoes served at our on campus Taco Bell due to a labor dispute by the Coalition of Immokali Workers.
Honors: Arizona State Academic Scholarship, NAACP Fannie Mae King Freedom Fighter Award, Navajo Nation Academic Scholarship
Publications: Arizona State Press, Arizona Capitol Times
Mesa Community College | Mesa, Arizona 1998-2000
Anti-Communist Loyalty Oath
Overview: Appointed as the Student Service Commissioner, the position entailed increasing student volunteerism. This was a paid staff position with the Maricopa County College System. I protested the hiring process which mandated all state employees to sign the McCarthy Anti-Communist Loyalty Oath. This battle forced me to work without collecting a pay check for months. The effort lead to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Area V CARES After School Literacy Program
Overview: I lead the creation of an after school literacy and tutoring program for the children of Mexican immigrants and for the surrounding neighborhood.
Results: The program improved the grades of dozens of students over a two year period and the program continues today.
Other Accomplishments: Elected Vice President of the Associated Students of Mesa Community College, All-Arizona Academic Team, Model United Nations debate team, Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, 2000 China Summer Exchange Program, Johnson Foundation Wingspread Fellow
Honors: National Hispanic Scholarship Fund Recipient, Navajo Nation Scholarship, Phi Theta Kappa Scholarship, Proclamation for Governor Jane D. Hull
Sub-Surface Miner | Arizona, Nevada and Alaska. 1993 – 1998
Overview: I worked in a variety of underground and sub-surface mines as a miner and as a core driller.
Results: The experiences that I had in these mines changed my life and made all of my accomplishments possible.
COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
Bread & Roses, Philadelphia, PA 2008 – present
· Community Grant Making Committee
Bread and Roses, 2010 Tribute To Change Planning Committee March 2010-
ACLU, Philadelphia, PA 2008 -2009
PCOC Executive Board Member 2010
· Board of Directors
Free Press, Washington DC 2003-2004
· National Conference Diversity Committee
AWARDS
Center for Progressive Leadership Fellow 2010
10 Most Influential Latinos Under the Age of 40 2008
East Valley NAACP Fannie Mae King Freedom Fighter Award 2001
All-Arizona Academic Team
PUBLICATIONS
ThatFinalStraw.com 2010
JwJ Blog 2008-present
Social Policy, “ From Worker Center to Labor Union” Fall 2010
Young Philly Politics 2006-Present
Democratic Left, “Sierra Clubbed” April 2003
Lefthook.org, ”The Politics of War, Guilt and Fear” 2002
My work has been featured in the Arizona Republic, Mesa Community College Legend, Arizona Capitol Times, The Nation Magazine web-site, GRIT TV with Laura Flaunders, Philadelphia Inquirer, In These Times, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Metro, Philadelphia Tribune, Philadelphia Sunday Sun, Temple News, Al Dia, Daily Pennsylvanian, City Paper, Philadelphia Weekly, NPR Station WHYY, Impacto Latino, Public Record, Defenastrator
