Dear Friends,
After a year of serving as FCWA’s interim leader, I’m so pleased to share that I have officially stepped into the role of Executive Director on a permanent basis.
As a former food worker, Mexican-American immigrant, and one of FCWA’s first employees, I’m immensely proud to lead our organization; and grateful to our members, member-led board, staff team, allies, and supporters like you who make this work possible.
When I think back to 2013, when I joined FCWA as an intern under Joann Lo, I realize just how much I had to learn about labor organizing — not to mention running a non-profit. However, I did possess two critical skills that serve me to this day: coordinating logistics for our annual worker leaders retreat, and building strong relationships with our members.
It started at my first retreat, when sneaking off to grab coffee with new friends turned into late nights in local restaurants or the hotel lounge. At some point over the years, my room became the spot where everyone came to hang out at the end of retreat days. Many late nights were spent talking candidly about the struggles we’re facing, the realities of organizing, the petty dramas of the nonprofit world, and everything in between. 13 years later, I still host these gatherings (even though I have a little less energy to stay up late on work nights).
Building relationships with the workers and organizers who make up our Alliance is the greatest privilege of this job, and these strong ties have given me the confidence to take on this role.
I’m humbled to follow in my predecessors’ footsteps, but because of our members, I feel prepared. I understand the challenges they’re facing, and what types of support FCWA is best suited to provide. When I don’t understand, I know I can call them up and they’ll tell me what I’m missing.
As Executive Director, I’m excited to continue to grow alongside our members, strengthen our alliance, and find ways to support food chain workers every day. It’s never been an easy task, but in the last year, conditions have deteriorated for our movement, with the Trump administration violently and racistly targeting immigrants for detention and deportation, corrupting the NLRB, weakening OSHA, expanding the H-2A program while making it even more exploitative; and surveilling, subpoenaing, and persecuting those who defend immigrants, organize workers, or oppose capitalism.
Despite the explicit threats to this work, we’ve carried on:
- Regranting $158,000 to members and individual workers for immigration needs.
- Sponsoring 60+ workers & organizers to attend our 2025 retreat in Portland.
- Hiring staff organizer Mark Medina, a cofounder of the Burgerville Workers Union.
- Sponsoring 10 workers & organizers to attend the Labor Notes Conference.
- Hosting a board retreat in Los Angeles — the first opportunity for our governing board to have a dedicated in-person meeting since 2020.
- Launching a new website after a few years of needing a refresh. 😅
- Training 17 emerging organizers in our Member Organizer Fellowship and Berkowitz Leadership Development Cohorts.
Of course, it’s our members who are doing the really impressive work, and I can’t miss the chance to share some recent wins:
- Street Vendor Project lifted the caps on NYC vending permits, and their own Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez is leading the City’s new Office of Street Vendor Services.
- New Seasons Labor Union ratified their first contract 3+ years of bargaining, raising the median wage for 850 NSLU members to $23.37/hour.
- Migrant Justice got Hannaford Markets’ parent company to agree to mediation on their international human rights complaint about abuses in the dairy supply chain.
- Venceremos features in the Netflix doc Big Chicken: A Fast Food Conspiracy, on the social, economic and industrial forces driving consumption of fried chicken.
- The DC and LA chapters of ROC United are now independent organizations and FCWA members in their own right, reestablished as Restaurant Organizing Collective (ROC DC) and the Worker Empowerment Community Network of LA (WECN-LA), respectively.
- And more than half of our members are leading efforts to defend their communities from ICE with hotlines, legal support, and mutual aid funds.
This struggle isn’t about one victory, one leader, or one year of activities. It will take more than a lifetime, and it’ll take all of us.
I’m proud to be a small part of it, and deeply grateful to you for standing beside us.
José López
Executive Director
