SPEAKER BIOS

 

FAHD AHMED

Fahd Ahmed has been a grassroots organizer on the issues of racial profiling, immigrant justice, police accountability, national security, and educational justice over the last 16 years. He is currently the Executive Director of DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving of New York City, where he has served in various capacities since 2000. DRUM has mobilized and built the leadership of thousands of low-income, South Asian immigrants to lead social and policy change that impacts their own lives- from immigrant rights to education reform, civil rights, and worker’s justice.

https://www.drumnyc.org/

 

BRANDON MANCILLA

Brandon Mancilla was elected UAW Region 9A Director in December 2022 in the first ever direct elections for the International Executive Board.  

Brandon was the first President of UAW Local 5118, the Harvard Graduate Students Union, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His experience with Local 5118 began as a rank-and-file organizer. After beginning graduate school at Harvard University, he joined the organizing drive which delivered one of the largest private sector organizing victories in the last 20 years. During the 29-day long strike of 2019, he was on the strike coordinating team planning university disruptions. He joined the temporary organizing staff at HGSU in January 2020, while he also worked as a teaching and research assistant for the university. In 2020, he was elected President of the local. As President, he helped build the new local with an emphasis on developing member-led committees to address contract enforcement, anti-harassment organizing, and campus and Boston-area labor solidarity efforts. Under his leadership, Local 5118 went back on strike and won a successor contract in 2021.  

Brandon has also worked for UAW Local 2325, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, in New York City as a local staff organizer. He joined the local staff at an exciting time with their significant growth in membership and organizing victories at new shops in the legal services sector. He worked directly with members and shop leaders to organize bargaining campaigns and enforce existing contracts. At UAW 2325, he led negotiations on first contract bargaining campaigns and successor agreements, conducted new organizing drives, and designed and led delegate and bargaining committee member trainings.  

Brandon was born into a working-class Guatemalan immigrant family in New York City. His commitment to building worker power comes in large part from his experience seeing how union membership allowed his family to achieve a level of stability and job protections that working-class immigrants in non-union jobs rarely have. Shortly after his family left Guatemala during the brutal civil war in the 1980s, his grandfather joined a union in the packaging industry in Long Island in the 1980s when Central American immigrants worked overwhelmingly in non-union jobs. 

Brandon has a Master’s Degree in history from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s Degree from Williams College. He currently lives in Queens, New York.

https://region9a.uaw.org/about/brandon-mancilla

 

ALETHIA JONES

Dr. Alethia Jones joined SLU as Distinguished Lecturer in Labor Studies in January 2023 and serves as director of Civic Engagement and Leadership Development at the Murphy Institute. For six years she directed the Education and Leadership Development Department of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the largest union local in the United States serving 400,000 members in five states and DC. As a member of the union’s Executive Committee, she anchored the strategy development process for the senior leadership team and led collaborations with the political, communications, and research departments to ensure aligned implementation. She led curriculum development and “Train the Trainer” processes that enabled thousands of organizers, officers, and members to lead effective power building workshops.  She oversaw the Bread and Roses partnership with Harry Belafonte (the cultural arts program), developed programs with the 1199/League Training and Education Fund, and coordinated with SEIU’s national initiatives, such as the Rockwood Leadership Program.

She is an expert on transformative leadership development and a certified liberation coach. Her consulting, research, and publications address immigrant political incorporation, urban informal economies, health care worker organizing, intersectional black feminism, and social justice philanthropy. She co-authored an award-winning movement memoir with black feminist icon and co-founder of Combahee River Collective, Barbara Smith (Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith).

https://slu.cuny.edu/people/alethia-jones/

 

 

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This program is part of the series, "America 250:  Rebuilding Democracy for Worker Justice", part of the Civic Engagement and Leadership Development program at the Murphy Institute of the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

 

Series Overview

America 250:  Rebuilding Democracy for Worker Justice

Civic Engagement and Leadership Development - Spring 2026

 

As the USA nears its 250th anniversary, democracy itself feels brittle -- captured by money, hollowed by polarization, and distant from the people who make the country run. Yet beneath the fatigue, worker power and people power is stirring all over the country. Democracy is not a document but a daily discipline, practiced in the collective demand for dignity. This is a moment to think audaciously about the civic power sleeping inside everyday work. Organizing is the seedbed of a new social contract—one that links economic fairness to planetary survival and collective self-rule. We must rebuild a democratic spirit worthy of the next century. In an era of deep political and social division, we need effective strategies for building lasting, multiracial, and cross-sectoral solidarity among today’s diverse workforce who demand justice.

• What must we learn—and unlearn—from history to build an economy and society that works for all?
• Which buried stories of worker solidarity and struggle offer the most instructive blueprints for a more just future?
• Can we build solidarity strong enough to counter corporate power?

 

Fri. January 23

"Chaos, Crisis and Resistance: Lessons of 2025"

https://slucuny.swoogo.com/23January2026

Guest Speakers:

Daniel Hunter - Expert at Choose Democracy and Freedom Trainers

Steve Phillips - founder of Democracy in Color

Nsé Ufot - acclaimed author and strategist

 

Fri. February 20    

"Bold Visions & Durable Alliances in Minnesota & Beyond"

https://slucuny.swoogo.com/20February2026

Guest Speakers:

Rev. JaNaé Bates Imari, ISAIAH and Faith in Minnesota

Eric Ward, Race Forward and Overcoming the Wedge

 

Fri. March 20    

"Workers Strike Back:  A New Era for Democracy & Justice in New York?"

https://slucuny.swoogo.com/20March2026

Guest Speakers:

Gabby Seay, Seay Strategies

Maria Stephan, The Horizons Project

 

Fri. April 24    

"Governing New York City:  By, Of, & For Workers?"

Guest Speakers:

Fahd Ahmed, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) and DRUM Beats

Brandon Mancilla, United Auto Workers (UAW) Region 9A