LERC welcomes Mara Rafferty as Director, Kicks off Strategic Planning Process
LERC welcomes Mara Rafferty as Director, Kicks off Strategic Planning Process
The Washington State Labor Education and Research Center (WA LERC) is proud to welcome its new Executive Director, Mara Rafferty.
Mara most recently served as Lead External Organizer for United Autoworkers Local 4121, where she helped lead campaigns, education, and training for young workers across Washington. As an organizer, she led and contributed to mass campaigns that saw thousands of workers win new collective bargaining rights and first contracts. A strong believer in the leadership of rank and file workers and the power of open and transparent bargaining, Mara has witnessed the ways that democratic decision making in unions can lead to mass participation and unprecedented wins.
Mara’s brings strong experience fighting for health and safety, combatting discrimination and harassment, and fighting for the rights of immigrant workers. She’s proud to be the first transgender woman to lead the LERC, and she’s proud to be helping build an inclusive and intersectional labor movement that fights for social, racial, and economic justice for all workers.
Before joining the UAW, Mara worked for several nonprofit and community organizations where she helped develop policy research and participatory civic education programs.
The Washington State Labor Education and Research Center works with unions, community-based organizations and within colleges throughout Washington state to provide training and classes for working people. Its mission is to use the best practices of adult education to help working people develop the skills, confidence, and knowledge to they need to build strong unions in their workplaces and fight for justice in their communities.
With the hiring of Director Rafferty, the LERC will be kicking off a process of strategic planning to meet with and listen to stakeholders involved in labor education across the state, and plan how to continually provide quality education and research to empower workers across all geographies. In the coming weeks, the LERC will be reaching out to many stakeholders including those providing career, technical, and labor education to Washington’s workers, those who are participating in worker organizing, and those engage in broader fights for social justice that affect workers’ lives. To be involved in giving feedback, please reach out to laborcenter@seattlecolleges.edu.