Michael Guerrero

Michael Guerrero in 2002

Michael Leon Guerrero is a New Mexico activist. He is the Interim National Coordinator of the Our Power Campaign. Michael became an organizer in the environmental justice movement in the South West through the SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) and SouthWest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (SNEEJ) and worked for 17 years in those organizations. Michael then co-founded and served as the National Coordinator of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance from 2004-2012, playing a key role in helping to organize the first and second U.S. Social Forums. Most recently, Michael served as Executive Director of UNITY, an alliance of national alliances organizing in different sectors of working-class communities of color in the U.S.

Michael serves on the boards of directors of Greenpeace, Inc. and the SWOP Action Fund, and is a former board member of Jobs with Justice.

UNITY

Circa 2015 Michael Guerrero was National Coordinator of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and UNITY, a collaboration between six national grassroots alliances including the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Right to the City Alliance, Pushback Network, National Guestworker Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and Jobs with Justice.

South West Organizing Project

Guerrero worked for the SouthWest Organizing Project for 17 years.

"Path to Power"

"Path to Power: Approaches to Building Electoral Power"

In April of 2005, we set out to assess the base building, coalition, and electoral strategies of power building organizations in 11 areas around the country. Our focus was on organizations that build a base in the community, recruit new working class activists, develop new working class leaders, and build broader coalitions around a strategic plan to influence public policy. We hoped to identify the groups’ strengths, weaknesses, and needs, and assess their interest and existing efforts in establishing

broader national collaborative efforts.

For two months, we conducted site visits with each of these groups to learn of their origins, their struggles, their victories, and their vision for winning political power for poor and working people.

Organizations consulted were; ALLERT (Los Angeles, CA), Center on Policy Initiatives (San Diego, CA), Coalition for Social Justice (Fall River, MA) Community Coalition (Los Angeles, CA), Community Organized for Responsible Development (New Haven, CT), Connecticut Center for a New Economy (New Haven, CT), Environmental Health Coalition, (San Diego, CA), Front Range Economic Strategy Center (Denver, CO), Jobs with Justice St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), Jobs with Justice South Florida (Miami, FL), Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Mi Familia Vota (Miami, FL), Neighbor to Neighbor, Massachusetts, South Bay Labor Council (San Jose, CA) Southern Echo (Jackson, MS, SouthWest Organizing Project (Albuquerque, NM) Statewide Alliance (Los Angeles, CA) Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE) (Los Angeles, CA) Unite for Dignity (Miami, FL) Working Partnerships (San Jose, CA).

The Project Team consisted of Jo Ann Bejar, Michael Leon Guerrero, John Maher.

World Social Forum

Michael Guerrero, Albuquerque, NM, of the SouthWest Organizing Project, attended the 2002 World Social Forum.

National Leading From the Inside Out Alum

Michael Guerrero, Director, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, was a 2005 Rockwood Leadership Institute National Leading From the Inside Out Alum.

Jobs with Justice

In 2009 Michael Guerrero served on the Executive Committee as Secretary and as a Board Member for Jobs with Justice-Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.

US Social Forum National Planning Committee

Contact Sheet for the National Planning Committee of the U.S. Social Forum, Detroit 2010. Original April 09, 2009, Updated February 23, 2010.

• Grassroots Global Justice (National) - Michael Leon Guerrero, Cindy Wiesner.

Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program

Michael Guerrero is an alumni of the Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program.

World People's Conference on Climate Change

Left to right Sara Mersha, Michael Leon Guerrero, Jen Soriano, Treston Davis-Faulkner, David Gonzales, Kandi Mossett and Rosalinda Guillen

The Grassroots Global Justice Alliance delegation to Durban, South Africa, December 2011 for World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth consisted of Sara Mersha, Michael Leon Guerrero, Jen Soriano, Treston Davis-Faulkner, David Gonzales, Kandi Mossett and Rosalinda Guillen.

"The 99% Spring"

Individuals and organizations supporting The 99% Spring, as of April 20, 2012, included Michael Guerrero - Grassroots Global Justice Alliance .

Ear to the Ground Project

Ear to the Ground Project;

We would like to express our deep respect and appreciation for everyone who took the time to talk with us, and the organizations that generously hosted us during our travels. Interviews were confidential, but the following people have agreed to have their names listed for this publication:

Most of those listed were connected to Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Michael Guerrero was among those on the list.

People's Climate March

Christine Cordero September 19, 2014 ·

NYC. I'm in here. So many rockstars. @OurPower contingent alone is about 4,000 folks, 50 buses from all over. Frontlines of Crisis, Forefront of Change.

Frontlines are actually out front becuse it takes roots to weather the storm... #PeoplesClimate #OurPower — with Rachel LaForest, Michael Leon Guerrero, Janet Redman, Ananda Lee Tan, Sara Mersha, Yuki Kidokoro, Sharon Lungo, Shaun Grogan-Brown, Cindy Wiesner, Helena Wong, Marjorie Childress, Samantha Corbin, Joshua Kahn Russell and Nene Igietseme.

Team

Labor Network for Sustainability team, July 2018;

• Joseph B. Uehlein, Founding President of the Labor Network for Sustainability.
• Michael Leon Guerrero, Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability.
• Jeremy Brecher
• Becky Glass
• Harley Mocker
• In Memoriam: LNS Co-Founder Tim Costello

Korea trip

Report on a May 2018 delegation of US trade unionists, Black Lives Matter, and other social movement activists to trade unions in Korea, sponsored by US Labor Against the War and the Korean Trade Union Confederation.

Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) executive director Michael Leon Guererro reports on a delegation of US trade unionists, Black Lives Matter, and other social movement activists to trade unions in Korea, sponsored by US Labor Against the War and the Korean Trade Union Confederation. Michael reports that the Korean labor movement played a key role in the peace process:

The road to the peace process was paved by the Candlelight Revolution - a popular movement uprising that lasted for months - ending in December 2016 with the impeachment of Korean President Park Gun-hye. Anchored by the KCTU, the movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in a series of protests against the corruption of the Park government and political domination by the family-owned conglomerates known as chaebols. On May 9, 2017, Moon Jae-in, a human rights attorney, was elected as the new President.

The delegation learned the history of the KCTU, which has grown to be a powerful organized voice of workers and changed the political landscape of Korea since being established just 30 years ago. Some of them met with former KCTU Chairman Han Sang-gyun and former vice-president Lee Young-Joo, both imprisoned by the Park administration on trumped up charges while protesting labor law reforms that would further limit workers' rights.

How will the process of denuclearization take place? What will be the timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops? How will the U.S. transition and clean up its military bases and the legacy of heavy toxic pollution that these bases invariably create? And will Trump ultimately derail a peace process that the Koreans themselves have taken into their own hands?

Glass cases filled with gas masks is not a common site in any metro station except in South Korea. Metro lines are buried deeper underground than most systems. Transit riders walk through long tunnels to make connections between stations. This has become a cultural legacy in a country more than 3 generations into the Cold War. Over the years there have been hopeful moments that the political military tension would come to an end - only to end in disappointment and frustration. But in this moment, there is cautious optimism that a transition to peace is really on the horizon.

From May 1 through 8 I had the honor to be invited on a delegation organized by US Labor Against the War (USLAW) to South Korea. It was a peace mission sponsored by USLAW and the Korean Trade Union Confederation (KCTU). Our group was a mix of trade unionists, Black Lives Matter and other social movement activists and a team of interns from Tougaloo College. Our purpose was to strengthen solidarity with the Korean labor and social movements. We couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Just a week earlier President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea met in an historic summit at the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two countries. Both leaders agreed to a peace process that will ultimately end the Korean War and eventually reunify the Korean peninsula.

The road to the peace process was paved by the Candlelight Revolution - a popular movement uprising that lasted for months - ending in December 2016 with the impeachment of Korean President Park Gunhye. Anchored by the KCTU, the movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in a series of protests against the corruption of the Park government and political domination by the family-owned conglomerates known as chaebols that control major sectors of the South Korean economy. On May 9, 2017, Moon Jae-in, a human rights attorney, was elected as the new President.

After a very informative orientation session at the Maritime Center in Baltimore led by Juyeon Rhee, Executive Director of Nodutdol and Reece Chenault, USLAW Executive Director, the delegation had to quickly troubleshoot as the first leg of our flight to Toronto was canceled. The team got most of us on alternate flights so that we arrived early in the morning of May 1.

A few hours later we were in the midst of tens of thousands of Korean trade unionists at the May Day rally. It was a powerful and visually striking event - with a parade of large flags representing hundreds of unions and expressions of solidarity with workers and communities in the midst of strikes or protests across the country. The #metoo movement has also had a strong influence in Korea and women workers throughout Korea were waging a nation-wide campaign to confront sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.

The next day we visited the small farming village of Seong Ju where a small army of 80-year old women is leading a protest movement against the THAAD missile defense system that the U.S. imposed on the region despite the objections of the surrounding villages. We were able to participate in a weekly Wednesday rally. We had great chants that a crew of our young delegates put together and the villagers loved the lively show of solidarity.

On May 3 we did a press conference in front of the U.S. embassy with leaders of KCTU. We recognized that the peace process is an important opportunity for workers and communities in the U.S. as well. We need to think about our own transition to a peacetime economy and to support the process forged by the Korean leaders.

The rest of the day was spent with leaders of KCTU, including Vice-President _______, who is also the chair of the KCTU reunification committee and the Railway Workers Union (RWU) which has played an important role in building KCTU. The current chair of the confederation, Kim Myeong-hwan was the former chair of the RWU. We learned more about the history of the KCTU, which has grown to be a powerful organized voice of workers and changed the political landscape of Korea since being established just 30 years ago.

Small teams from our delegation were also able to meet with former KCTU Chairman Han Sang-gyun and former vice-president Lee Young-Joo, both imprisoned by the Park administration on trumped up charges while protesting labor law reforms that would further limit workers’ rights. Other members of the delegation met with representatives of the Korean Teachers Union which was decertified by the Park administration by allowing unemployed teachers to maintain their membership in the union. The team from Tougaloo college also met with a student organization and shared experiences of organizing and political education of students in their respective communities.

As a representative of the Labor Network for Sustainability I was of course interested in the position of the Korean government and the trade unions on climate change and a just transition from a fossil-fuelbased to a sustainable economy. In 2017 the Korean Power Plant Industry Union actually applauded the decision by the Moon administration to phase out older coal-fired power plants stating “Although our hearts are heavy, we welcome the shutdown of worn out coal power plants because we are clear about what kind of country we want to leave for our descendants.” Unfortunately I couldn’t find out more about other Korean union positions on these questions during the visit, but it is definitely an area where there is much opportunity for dialogue and exchange.

Our last visit was to the DMZ. We were met by representatives of the village of _____ and they hosted us for lunch. Our last stop was the Dorasan train station - a newly built station that was supposed to connect to the North Korean rail system when the last promising peace negotiations faltered a few years ago. The station is now a tourist spot with hopes of one day realizing its true mission.

Many questions remain in the transition to peace - how will the process of denuclearization take place? What will be the timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops? How will the U.S. transition and clean up its military bases and the legacy of heavy toxic pollution that these bases invariably create? And will Trump ultimately derail a peace process that the Koreans themselves have taken into their own hands?

A promising proposal for the DMZ is that it be converted to a wildlife refuge. Apparently this fourkilometer wide stretch of land that spans the peninsula has developed into a de-facto, protected ecosystem where wildlife has flourished for nearly 7 decades - an unexpected legacy of the Cold War that hopefully has the chance to continue and expand across a united Korea.

Special thanks to Wol San Liem and Mikyung Ryu of the KCTU International Department for the hospitality, education and logistics coordination. Looking forward to more U.S.-Korea exchange and solidarity in the years to come.

External links

• Center for Third World Organizing website
• Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program website

References

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