WSLC welcomes Cherika Carter as Field Mobilization Director

SEATTLE (March 23, 2018) — Next week, the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO welcomes Cherika Carter as its new Field Mobilization Director, filling the position vacated with April Sims’ appointment as Political and Strategic Campaign Director.

“It is my great pleasure to announce Cherika’s hiring,” said WSLC President Jeff Johnson. “Cherika earned her political chops in the battleground state of Ohio working for UFCW Local 1059 and the Ohio AFL-CIO. She was part of the team that overturned SB 5, John Kasich’s ‘Right-to-Work-for-Less’ bill, by taking it to the people of Ohio. She is a veteran of grassroots member-to-member political education programs and is ready to hit the ground running.”

Cherika is excited to work with WSLC affiliates to continue to organize, mobilize, and educate union and community members around issues that affect working families. She is most enthusiastic about having conversations going door-to-door, phone banking, rounding folks up for lobby days or rallies, and working alongside community activists.

“All work has dignity and I truly believe in the power of a collective voice, on and off the job,” Cherika said. “At every job I have ever held, I have been a union member, Because of that, I am dedicated to making sure working people have the opportunity to join together in union and harness that collective power to create an economy that works for us all.”

In 2011, Cherika went door-to-door collecting signatures to repeal SB 5 and saw the repeal through to an election night victory defeating Issue 2 as a Member-Political-Organizer with the UFCW 1059. She and her team knocked on more than 25,000 doors, helped win a pick-up seat in the Ohio State House for working families, and was part of the battleground-state effort that sent President Barack Obama back to the White House for a second term.

Cherika knows that all politics are local. In 2013, she worked as a lead organizer of AFSCME Ohio Council 8 to help defeat Issue 4 to protect the pensions of Cincinnati’s working families. While she says the 2016 election was a humbling experience, the team that Cherika led in Cincinnati helped pass the Preschool Promise, gain control of the Hamilton County Commission, elect the first Latina to the Hamilton County Court of Appeals, and elect a person of color as the new Clerk of Court. In November 2017, she led labor’s efforts in a tough mayoral race to help secure a victory for labor’s endorsed candidate.

Cherika is committed to fighting poverty and prejudice, and advancing the freedoms of all working people.

“There can be no racial justice without economic justice, and no economic justice without racial justice,” she said. “I am absolutely committed to helping others understand this.”

By trade, Cherika is a Certified Pharmacy Technician. She also is certified #BlackGirlMagic and radiates magic in everything that she does. Cherika holds degrees in Political Science and African-American and African Studies from The Ohio State University.

Johnson added, “Cherika and our Political Director April Sims will make a formidable political team for Washington state’s labor movement. Cherika starts on Monday, March 26 – please drop her a line to welcome her.”