Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates speaking on unapologetically bold worker and community organizing

Please join the Alameda Labor Council (ALC), East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), and the UC Berkeley Labor Center for a talk by Stacy Davis Gates, President of the Chicago Teachers Union. After her presentation, Stacy will be joined in conversation by Cassondra Curiel, President of the United Educators of San Francisco, and Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, President of the Oakland Educators Association.

As President of CTU and co-founder of United Working Families, Stacy has helped elect progressive rank-and-file leaders to all levels of government, culminating in the election of former CTU organizer and middle school teacher Brandon Johnson as Mayor of Chicago in 2023. After 40 years of neoliberal governance, Chicago is now creating the roadmap for how we govern for and reconnect with working people, Black and brown people, and women and families in cities and towns across the country. Stacy will offer her reflections on how decades of unapologetically bold worker and community organizing in Chicago have led to this unique moment of possibility for transformational change, powered by alignment between labor unions, community organizers, and governing power.

Presidents Gates, Curiel, and Taiz-Rancifer have been engaging with labor leaders across the nation to build collective power and mass mobilizations. This was evidenced on May Day 2025, when labor and community partners mobilized more than 1,000 actions in 800+ cities and towns across all 50 states to demand fully funded schools, health care for all, and protections for workers, immigrant families, and Black and brown communities. Labor and community organizations are once again coming together to uplift these demands with thousands of planned protests on Labor Day.

We hope you will join us on Wednesday, September 10 from 6:00-7:30 pm to hear more about how progressive movements in cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Oakland are building solidarity and coalitions to expand possibilities for Black and brown communities – especially in the face of a federal regime conducting mass deportations and corporate oligarchs overseeing the destruction of our country’s safety net.

Please RSVP by Friday, September 5th, using this registration form. Refreshments and light bites will be served.