Summer Session at The STAND

The new “Entire Staff of The STAND” introduces herself

By SARAH TUCKER

Hello, hi it’s me: the Entire Staff of The STAND. We’re looking a little different these days. For one, when the Former Entire Staff of The STAND started his tenure at the WSLC, I was about 10 months shy of being born. While he was laying the groundwork for what would become the STAND, I was learning how to spell. (Thankfully, after years of his tutelage, I’ve fnialy got that down…mostly.)

The Founding Entire Staff of The STAND has left big shoes to fill. As I step into those mile-long sneakers, I think it’s important for readers to have a sense of the person behind the keyboard. Storytelling is what we do here, after all. So here’s a little yarn about me. 

I grew up in central California, a region where the disparity between workers inland and the ultra-wealthy on the coasts is profound. I grew up in a majority Latine, working class county, but as a scholarship student at private schools, the vast majority of my classmates were white and wealthy. Even to a relatively sheltered, protected white kid, a racialized wealth gap felt wrong, although I didn’t have the language to explain why. 

I got a scholarship to university, and moved to Seattle for school. There, I had three life-changing experiences in the span of 18 months that helped me develop the language I needed to articulate the world I saw. First, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that upended the plans I had for my life and opened my eyes to our hellish, pay-to-live healthcare system. Second, I took a sociology class where I learned about the construction of race as a tool to divide working people and break worker power. And third, I joined organizing efforts in support of adjunct professors fighting for a union, many of them professors I worked with as an office aide in an academic department.

A picket of adjunct faculty, students, and supporters outside Seattle University in Spring 2015.

Once I could see the puzzle pieces of worker exploitation fitting together, once I could name them, it was impossible to unsee.

The New Entire Staff of The STAND posing while gathering signatures in 2016.

In 2016, then-WSLC Field Mobilization Director April Sims hired me to work on the state-wide initiative campaign that raised the minimum wage and required an hour of paid sick and safe leave for every 40 hours worked.

Labor drove that initiative, putting significant resources into improving working conditions for all workers. On election night, as it became clear Trump would be elected, I watched returns come in from across Washington. In many counties that had overwhelmingly voted for the former President, our initiative was passing. Whatever the state of our Party politics, when working people could see their concerns addressed directly on the ballot, they voted for solutions. This cemented the idea that had been bubbling up in my head since college; if we want to improve the lives of working people, the best tool we have is organized labor. 

Now, that’s not a new idea – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nailed that decades before I showed up. (Maybe I’d have caught on a little sooner if any of those private schools I went to taught labor history. But then again, that’s probably why they didn’t.)

I worked in the State House for a couple years, getting a close-up look at power structures that were never designed with working people in mind, but that govern our lives all the same. When I had the opportunity to come work at the WSLC in 2018, I jumped on it. Over the past six years, I’ve come to another realization: the best tool labor has for building power for working people is our stories. (Yeah, I’m late on that one too.)

I love The STAND because it’s a home for worker stories – my story, your story. We all have stories that center the working people who power this country.

As a communicator, I have a simple belief: I think people on the outside often see clearest. A spectator in the stands can see more in one glance than the player on the field. People who are marginalized, who are pushed to the outskirts, often have a clearer understanding of how the world really works. 

In a world where wealth is prized above all else, working people are marginalized. Our labor is exploited to maximize profits. Our voices are suppressed to make sure we don’t rock the boat, because within our stories is the potential to right a power imbalance that has been grinding working people down for generations. Our stories challenge the rules set by runaway, exploitative capitalism. That’s the power of The STAND. 

With the departure of the Formidable, Founding, Former Entire Staff of The STAND, I’m committed to ensuring The STAND continues to be an essential source for labor news and a functional tool for building worker power. 

The WSLC will have a one person comms shop for the next couple of months. So with limited capacity, we’ll be running what I’m calling The STAND: Summer Session 🌞🌴 through Labor Day.

It’s The STAND you know and love, but slightly scaled down. Labor news will be posted on the STAND and land in your inbox every weekday morning, sharing a couple local stories, labor actions, or national news of note. We’ll round out the week with a run-down of local, national, and international labor news every Friday – plus something that’s made me smile that week (after all, joy and justice go hand in hand). 

As always, The STAND continues to run on working people’s stories – your stories. Keep sending in your tips, actions, victories, and news to stucker@wslc.org. 

Sarah Tucker is the Interim Communications Director of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. As of today, she is also The Entire Staff of The STAND.