WHO WE ARE

VALENTINA LUKETA
GENERAL PRESIDENT

I was born in Croatia and grew up during the civil wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. My desire to build a better world was born amidst fascism and nationalism. As my society tried to teach me to hate, I sought opportunities to love. From a young age I supported my family by working in the service industry, where I developed a deep sense of the injustices bosses inflict on us. Inspired by a desire to build solidarity across borders, I spent four years in Egypt during the Arab Spring as part of the worker movement there.

I first learned of UE’s principles and militant approach as a rank-and-file leader of the graduate worker union at Indiana University as we led a fight for the impossible: union recognition in a state that prohibits bargaining rights for public employees. We defied everyone who told us we’d never have a chance at power, waging a strike that won 40% raises for workers who lived well below the poverty line.

Following my experience as rank-and-file leader, I had the honor to join UE’s staff as our Higher Education Coordinator, working with leaders of new organizing campaigns to bring almost 30,000 new members into UE. I assisted locals in winning union elections, first contracts and shop floor fights to enforce hard-fought rights and benefits. Our strategy rested on a worker-to-worker organizing program, where UE members from successful campaigns shared winning strategies with other workers, scaling up our capacity to organize.

At the national level, I led efforts to welcome our new members into UE by facilitating worker-to-worker exchanges between new and established locals to share strategies, experiences and wisdom, building unity across industries. I’m training new locals in UE’s rank and file structure and principles, leading our national level strategy to win industry power and assisting in launching the UE Graduate Worker Conference Board.

KIM LAWSON
DIRECTOR OF ORGANIZATION

I grew up in a union-dense working class neighborhood in Northwest Indiana.  I am the daughter of a factory worker and of a retail clerk.  I am a granddaughter of coal miners. Both my parents and my grandparents were proud union members.  Union wages and benefits enabled my parents to send me to a state university where I was exposed both to great knowledge and to the ignorance of so many people who do not understand the importance of trade unions for the working class.  

After I graduated, I took my first job with the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California.  I worked with Cesar Chavez, Delores Huerta and other great leaders and learned first-hand the cruel conditions of workers whose labor produces the wealth that others enjoy.  As a staff writer for UFW publications, it was my job to document this cruelty.  I attended funerals of farm workers’ children who had been poisoned by pesticides, and I worked with other great labor activists to document cancer clusters where children were born with profound birth defects due to pesticide use and abuse.  I was told by farmworkers about the lack of running water and sanitation.  I learned that the growers/owners and their managers would tell farmworkers that the pesticides being sprayed on them were “ vitamins” that would do them no harm.  

After the farmworkers, I worked briefly for a garment workers’ union and finally landed at the UE - which instantly felt like home.  I started my work in Decatur, Indiana, assisting the militant local whose members worked at GE (UE Local 924).  GE had announced the plant was closing and used the news of the closing as leverage in the company’s efforts to wrestle wage cuts from workers at a nearby plant represented by the IUE, a union used to undermine the UE in the 1950's and which no longer exists today. Local 924 had amazing officers: leaders and stewards who led the fight to keep the Decatur plant open with militancy.  When the company told the us it wanted to bring mental health professionals into the plant to assist the local’s members with their anger issues, the UE local responded by telling the company that the problem wasn’t that members were angry, but that GE was attempting to close its most efficient small motor factory simply to increase profits for shareholders.  Local 924 taught me how a model UE local operates.

UE transferred me to Vermont, where I serviced a number of UE manufacturing locals (e.g., Stanley Tool) and began organizing new members into the UE.  Over the years, I helped organize thousands of workers into the UE and bargained first contracts at the University of Vermont, City Market Food Coop in Burlington, Hunger Mountain Food Coop, and at many nonprofit agencies in Vermont and elsewhere.  I also directed the organizing of the members at the Vermont Service Center, a sister shop to our locals in California and Nebraska.  During this time I learned how to organize new members, how to help consolidate new locals, how to identify and develop shop leaders, and how to bargain first contracts and to help locals set up best practices based on UE’s core principles of rank and file democracy.  Most of the locals I helped organize are still proud UE locals today.

In 2015, I was diagnosed with cancer and took a disability retirement for 6 years.  Thanks to science, I managed to survive the cancer and returned to the UE as a staff coordinator in 2022.  Since my return, I have worked with new staff to orient them to their role in a rank and file run union and trained staff to bargain contracts and to train stewards.  Most importantly for our great rank-and-file union, I have encouraged locals to engage in shop floor fights whenever possible.  I was proud to be the bargaining chair who helped Locals 1466, 1103 and 1122 win their first contracts at the University of New Mexico, University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

ANDREW DINKELAKER
GENERAL SECRETARY-TREASURER

I am originally from Troy, NY and my parents were activists and social workers. I am grateful that my parents, especially my mom, exposed me to values of mutual respect, fighting for justice and caring for one another even when times were tough. 

My journey in UE began in 1994 when I was hired as an employment counselor at a private non-profit in Vermont during the middle of a UE organizing campaign that was being supported by then Field Organizer Kim Lawson. Our department nominated me to represent them on the bargaining committee. I learned first hand from Kim about the principles of UE as we put them into practice at the bargaining table. As a UE member I was proud to serve as a Recording Secretary for the local. After a couple of years in my job I was considering moving on to something new and it was Kim who asked if I would be interested in working for UE as a field organizer. I really respected the work Kim and others were doing in the field so I took the leap and in 1997 I interviewed with then Director of Organization Bob Kingsley and was offered to work for UE. I was assigned to Northeast Ohio, and later Greater Boston followed by Northwestern PA. Throughout those years I was often sent to organizing and affiliation campaigns throughout the United States. Along the way, our creed “the members run this union” has always stayed with me in all the locals I had the privilege to organize and service. 

In 2005 I was elected to be District 6 president and in 2006 was elected the first president of the then newly formed Eastern Region. This was at a time when for financial reasons the region was a consolidation of Districts 1, 6 and 7. The leadership challenges were in establishing a new common identity as a region, building membership participation, and creating cohesive leadership among groups that were used to working on a much smaller geographic scale. The members of the new Eastern Region really rose to the challenge. We had an atmosphere of encouraging members to run for office and having contested elections. The introduction of the “chicken dance” became an adopted norm applied to anyone who showed up late to an e-board or council meeting and was especially joyous when folks including national officers tried to slip in unnoticed. It was a little fun, but the members knew when it was time to get down to the serious work of the business of the union. The pride of sharing stories from the shops inspired me to start producing short videos and a newsletter to keep the membership connected at a new level. I really enjoyed my time working with so many wonderful people as we collectively formed and embraced our new identity as the Eastern Region. 

In 2011 I was honored to be elected as UE General Secretary Treasurer (GST). When I started the UE had been running consistent and unsustainable deficits for some time that were made drastically worse by growing pension liabilities due to changes in federal law. I took on the task by following the legacy of running a tight ship, often referring everyone to the extremely useful booklet on UE’s philosophy on finances appropriately titled “Open Books, Tight Fists” which was created under the leadership of retired GST Amy Newell.