Leadership & Staff
EXECUTIVE BOARD (BOARD OF DIRECTORS)
Richard Rogers, Chair
Executive Secretary-Treasurer, Greater Boston Labor Council
Noemi Ramos, Clerk
Executive Director, New England United for Justice
Tom Callahan, Treasurer
Executive Director, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance
Domenic Desiata
Tenant Organizer, City Life/Vida Urbana
Enid Eckstein
Vice President, 1199SEIU Massachusetts - United Healthcare Workers East
Tom Flynn
Political Director, New England Regional Council of Carpenters
Jovanna Garcia Soto
Green Space Organizer, Chelsea Collaborative
Muradieu Joseph
Leader, SEIU Local 615
John Laughlin
Political Director, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 35
Warren Pepicelli
Manager/Vice President, New England Joint Board, UNITE HERE
Khalida Smalls
Organizing Director, Alternatives for Community and Environment
STAFF
Darlene Lombos
Executive Director
Darlene started with CLU in 2006 as a Senior Organizer, became Organizing Director then Co-Director in 2008, and finally Executive Director in 2011, Darlene has been organizing around various community issues since 1996, including police accountability and home daycare justice at Direct Action for Rights and Equality in Providence, RI as well as transportation equity, gentrification and displacement, and education reform at Sisters in Action for Power in Portland, OR. She brings fifteen years' experience in community and youth organizing, leadership development and coalition-building to this work.
Jeremy Shenk
Deputy Director
Jeremy came to Community Labor United in 2009 from the Service Employees International Union Local 615 where he was the community organizer. Among other things he built community support for a campaign of almost 1500 security officers who protect buildings in downtown Boston, Back Bay, and Cambridge to first form a union and then get a first union contract that had affordable high quality healthcare, significant wage increases, and other benefits for the first time. He was raised in Virginia and lived and organized for five years with the United Steelworkers and the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh PA before relocating to Boston in 2007.
Soledad Boyd
Senior Organizer
Soledad joined CLU’s staff in 2009. Soledad came to CLU from City Life/Vida Urbana where she began her organizing work eight years ago as a tenant organizer organizing low income and working class tenants of color. During her time at City Life, Soledad organized tenants in their struggle against rent increases and poor living conditions as well as their fight for respect from landlords. Soledad also helped form City Life’s Bank Tenant Association, which mobilizes tenants and former owners living in foreclosed properties against post foreclosure evictions. These efforts led to a city ordinance protecting tenants living in foreclosed properties.
Diana Bell
Senior Organizer
Diana joined CLU in March of 2010. For over 5 years, Diana has been involved in community organizing and advocacy in the Greater Boston area and beyond. Prior to her work at CLU, she worked as a Campaign Organizer at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA Coalition) where she helped lead two statewide legislative and budgetary initiatives- one campaign at securing equal higher education access for immigrant students and the other aimed at increasing public funding for ESOL programs. Diana also worked at the MA State House, SEIU Local 615 and City Life/Vida Urbana. Currently, Diana serves on the Advisory Board of SIM (Student Immigrant Movement), the unifying organizing structure for immigrant youth in Massachusetts. Diana is Ecuadorean-American and recently returned from a year long stay in her family’s home country.
Connie Razza
Policy and Research Director
Connie joined CLU’s staff in 2011 and has been a strategic research campaigner for more than a decade, working primarily on organizing campaign design and implementation for labor unions including the UAW and UNITE HERE international unions. In addition, she served the New York City Council as its Senior Policy Analyst for health issues. Connie also worked as a union organizer after being an activist-leader in an organizing drive of student employees throughout the University of California system.
David Minasian
Researcher
David joined CLU’s staff in 2011 and has worked as an organizer for the Alliance to Develop Power in Springfield where he organized a tenant buy-out of a Section 8 complex and helped facilitate the creation of a worker-controlled cooperative business called United for Hire. David also is a member of Carpenters Local 107 and was a steward, editor of the local’s newsletter and elected delegate. Before arriving at CLU, he finished his Master’s Degree at the Labor Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was an instructor teaching Labor History to Carpenter apprentices and Political Science at Worcester State University.
Mike Prokosch
Administration and Grants Manager
Mike joined CLU's staff in 2009. He has worked as a graphic artist, community newspaper editor, and organizer in the Vietnam, Central America, and Iraq antiwar/solidarity movements. For the past decade he has led popular economics trainings for unions and community groups through United for a Fair Economy and the UMass Lowell Labor Extension Program.
