Alliance for Social and Economic Justice board
Karl Kramer, President
Karl Kramer has been the campaign co-director of the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition since its founding in 1998, organizing low-wage workers to build a movement that led to a number of unique local wage and benefit laws. He is currently organizing mothers in the welfare-to-work transition to get genuine job training programs that are pathways to public sector employment or prepare participants for jobs in the green economy. He and members of the Living Wage Coalition have been involved as allies of the Day Labor Program and Colectiva de Mujeres, an organization of house cleaners and nannies, in participating in direct actions to protest wage theft, fighting for city funding and against police harassment, and providing English classes.
They also have worked together on legislative and electoral campaigns to benefit low-wage workers and defend immigrant rights. He was previously an organizer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 101 assisting immigrant fish processing workers in organizing unions. He also has been the Parade Organizer of the Cesar Chavez Holiday Parade in San Francisco, a field organizer for the San Francisco Labor Council, political director for the San Francisco Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and chapter coordinator for the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
In the late seventies and early eighties, he was a day laborer in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and along the border area while living in Tijuana. At the age of 26, he obtained a GED and enrolled at SF State University where he received a degree in journalism and ethnic studies. In San Francisco, he was a warehouse worker as a member of the Teamsters where he became involved in the labor movement. He also has a certificate in labor studies from City College of San Francisco.
Guillermina Castellanos, Vice President
Guillermina Castellanos Mendoza is the Co-Founder & Co-Director of the Jornaleros y Trabajadoras del Hogar de San Francisco when in 2023, she led the transition of the SF Day Labor Program and La Colectiva de Mujeres into an independent organization. She formed a transition team to establish a member board and community board of advisors. She secured a fiscal agent agreement and initiated the process for non-profit status. She developed and executed a fundraising strategy to establish a strong financial foundation. She structured and implemented the new organizational framework.
She was the Co-Director of Advocacy & Organizing for Dolores Street Community Services in San Francisco from 2012 to 2023. At Dolores Street Community Services, she established the UNDOCUFUND, raising millions to support undocumented workers during the pandemic.
Between 1989 and 2023, she co-founded La Colectiva de Mujeres and the California Domestic Worker Coalition. She played a key role in establishing the National Domestic Worker Alliance and the Federación Internacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar, the international federation of domestic workers. She advocated for domestic worker rights at the United Nations, contributing to the establishment of Article 189.
She was the program Manager of Proyecto Amigo in San Francisco from 1998 to 2000, in which she organized workshops on HIV/AIDS education for the migrant community and facilitated support groups and health education for vulnerable populations.
She was the Migration Training Facilitator in San Francisco from 1995 to 1997 and designed and implemented training programs on migrant rights and legal processes and provided direct support to migrants in regularizing their status and accessing essential services.
She has been Director of La Colectiva de Mujeres in San Francisco from 2001 to the present, in which she led strategic initiatives to support domestic workers, including training programs and community outreach, developed partnerships with community and government organizations to enhance service delivery, and supervised a team focused on defending labor and human rights.
She had been a General Organizer in Mujeres Unidas y Activas from 1993 to 1996 in which she organized statewide and national tours of Teatro Popular to educate communities on immigrant rights, and led labor rights education in schools and community organizations.
Rachel West, Vice President
Rachel West is an anti-racist women’s rights activist. She coordinates the Crossroads Women’s Center which is home to a number of women’s groups serving and advocating for low income women in the Bay Area for decades.
These groups include: the Global Women’s Strike which focuses on getting recognition and resources for unwaged caregiving work including for welfare and a living wage for mothers and other caregivers; Legal Action for Women – a free legal service for women which Ms West founded; the US PROStitutes Collective which works for the decriminalization of sex work and for resources for those who want to leave prostitution and for which Ms West serves as spokeswoman; and the In Defense of Prostitute Women’s Safety Project to end violence against sex workers. Originally from southern Africa, where her family fought against apartheid and was deported as a result, Ms West immigrated to the US in 1981. A lesbian woman, she is a mother and a grandmother and organized the first Lesbian Mothers’ Day in the Park in the 1980s.
Francisco Herrera, Vice President
He is co-director of the Jornaleros y Trabajadoras del Hogar de San Francisco.
Francisco Herrera has been involved in community organizing for social justice for over forty years. Since 1980 he has participated with community organizing efforts throughout the state of California working with various organizing networks, Pacific Institute for Community Organizing, known today as Faith in Action, Gamaliel, Industrial Areas Foundation, Center for Third World Organizing, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, Share Foundation and Central American Mission Partners, both organizations with whom he helped organize delegations to all the countries of Central America and in the U.S. to stop military aid to El Salvador, Honduras. He was part of the founding committees of the Oakland Catholic Worker – Refugee Project (1986) San Francisco Day Laborer Progra (1989) Caminante Cultural Work (1989) and Caminante Cultural Foundation (2002/ 2020), all program through which Francisco has served as group facilitator, leadership development trainer, performer and producer.
Francisco has served on various boards, such as the Western Workers Heritage Festival, Alliance for Social and Economic Justice(Board Vice-President), Homeless Children’s Network (Board President). He serves as Cultural Worker also with the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s “Ignatian Family Teach In for Justice” where over 2000 students from Catholic Universities and High Schools come together to analyze, organize and lobby congress on issues of mass incarceration, climate justice, immigrant and labor rights and ethical foreign policy.
Francisco has served on various boards, such as the Western Workers Heritage Festival, Alliance for Social and Economic Justice (Board Vice-President), Homeless Children’s Network (Board President). He serves as Cultural Worker also with the Ignatian Solidarity Network’s “Ignatian Family Teach In for Justice” where over 2000 students from Catholic Universities and High Schools come together to analyze, organize and lobby congress on issues of mass incarceration, climate justice, immigrant and labor rights and ethical foreign policy.
Francisco is a well known musician and songwriter participating as part of the stage team, organizing at the School of America’s Watch program. His artistic work has always been an expression of his political and community organizing work. At the same time his administrative and political work is also informed by his artistic work. This engagement between two areas. Fuerza de la Raíz is an arts-based, participatory professional development training for boards, administration, staff and community membership which lifts up the strength of the “most vulnerable.” Francisco has produced 7 albums of music and music for documentaries and films. Francisco’s work promotes community organizing as a practice to improve the quality of life of working people
Director Andreina Maldonado, founder Bienstar Consulting
Andreína Maldonado (She/her) is a Venezuelan performing artist, cultural worker, and founder of BienStar Consulting, based in ancestral Yelamu territory, also known as San Francisco, California. Celebrating her indigenous roots, Andreína was born in Maracay, within the region of the Araguas indigenous peoples on the Caribbean coast. Her community-focused work addresses the lack of artistic and healing spaces in low-income communities, amplifying the voices of Latinx individuals disproportionately affected by social inequities. An eclectic and conceptual artist, Andreína utilizes dance, music, visuals, textures, text, and other modalities to craft immersive audience experiences.
Founder of @bienstar.biz
Band member of @intimystcia
Director Kirsten Moller, interim administrator, Global Exchange
MSW is a co-founder of Global Exchange and currently the interim Administrator of the organization. She has most recently worked as a social worker in a large San Francisco Skilled Nursing facility and from 2014- 2021 she worked as a Field Ombudsman and Program Director for the San Mateo Ombudsman Services, protecting the rights of elders in long term care facilities. She has spent 25 years working in the field of international human rights, as an organizer and Executive Director of Global Exchange developing campaigns for economic justice and peace. She is a dual national Denmark/US and spent her early years as a welder/machinist in both countries and in Latin America.
Savannah Landau, secretary
Savannah Landau is the Western Regional Organizer for the Committee in Solidarity for the People of El Salvador (CISPES). CISPES is a grassroots organization that organizes strategic campaigns against US government and corporate interventions in El Salvador, and accompanies the Salvadoran popular movement in its work to realize an inspiring vision of participatory democracy and economic justice. They started their position back in July 2022 and their role has entailed supporting chapter members with organizing campaigns, workshops, demonstrations, and fundraising events.
Before they joined CISPES, they were involved with student organizing at San Francisco State University. They were one of the founding members of the student group, Jewish Students Against Zionism (JAZ). During their time as a student organizer, they were able to organize teach-ins for Jewish students and coordinate efforts against Zionist propaganda on campus. When they joined CISPES, they were given opportunities to strengthen their skills. Of those opportunities, they have been able to facilitate teach-ins (both in-person and virtual), participate in Congressional visits, host film screenings and discussions, and organize public demonstrations. By the end of 2020, they got to be a part of a campaign victory when the U.S. Congress announced that Foreign Military Financing to El Salvador would be restricted. This outcome came after a months-long push from the people after witnessing the country become militarized during the beginning of the pandemic.
Alongside this work, Savannah also plays a role as Secretary of the Board for the Alliance for Social and Economic Justice (ASEJ), in assisting grassroots organizations in coordinating meeting and event space and organizing workshops, fundraisers, and teach-ins.
As a tenant, Savannah also organizes with the Westside Tenant Association (WSTA). The WSTA is a grassroots organization autonomously run by tenants based on the Westside of San Francisco. Members collectively organize to educate each other on their rights, coordinate demonstrations against gentrification and development projects, and organize tenant-led campaigns fighting eviction or other forms of displacement.
Kaylah Marin, executive co-director, Social and Economic Justice Film Festival and executive director, Social and Economic Justice Music Festival
Kaylah Marin first began writing and performing as a child with her father, jazz saxophonist Philip Marin, who instilled in her a love of music and dance rich with her Central American (Garifuna) roots. She has worked with Narada Micheal Walden, Billboard Producer DJ’s, the Perry Twins and producer Quinn Coleman, Josh Harris, Mike Rizzo, Rod Carrillo, and Tracy Young. Her single “Oh Baby Please” debuted at number three on the dance Billboard chart, maintaining the top 10 spot for over a month. Kaylah has performed for human rights activist Dolores Huerta’s “Weaving Moments Together” benefit concert celebrating Huerta’s 80th birthday at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. She also scored music for the award-winning documentary “Texas Gold” and did the voiceover and score for “Just Children,” winner of four international film festival awards.