 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, February 22, 2022 Contact: Marcos Ceniceros, marcos@warehouseworker.org, 773.386.7495 Warehouse Workers for Justice Names Marcos Ceniceros as Its New Executive Director CHICAGO, IL - The Board of Directors at Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ), an Illinois-based warehouse worker center, officially named Marcos Ceniceros as its new Executive Director on January 20, 2022. Marcos was born and raised in the southwest side of Chicago to Mexican immigrants who dedicated their lives to family, faith and work. Throughout the years serving at his local church, being a Chicago Public Schools alum and experiencing the struggles of working immigrant families, like his own, the power structures and inequitable systems became clear to him. This drove him to become more involved in organizing and politics. He most recently held the position of WWJ’s interim Executive Director, after initially serving as its Associate Director. He joined in Spring 2021 and continues to build power for working people throughout the city and state. Marcos is excited to continue expanding WWJ’s organizing and outreach efforts from the past year to build worker power and change the industry in our region and across the country. “Warehouse and logistics workers continue to go through many hardships, many exacerbated by the pandemic, and there is no better time than now to organize workers as they fight for better wages and better working conditions,” Marcos said.  Prior to WWJ, he accumulated a wealth of organizing experience at the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, a community-based organization, as both a youth and community organizer. He worked on campaign issues such as having an Elected School Board in Chicago and raising the minimum wage across the state. Through this work, Marcos grew as an organizer by leading canvasses, organizing community meetings and taking community leaders to Springfield, IL to lobby for these and other important issues that successfully pushed campaigns forward. While at Grassroots Collaborative, a coalition of labor and community organizations, he developed and supported coalitions that took on Chicago’s budget and budget process to ensure fully-funded resources for low-income and working families. Throughout the years, he also led and developed popular education curricula focused on equity, race and power. For the past 8 years, Marcos has been an affiliated organizer and currently sits on the Party Committee for United Working Families, an independent progressive political organization. “For too long, corporations, developers, and billionaires have built their wealth on the backs of working people and decimated Black and Brown communities,” said Marcos. “We believe that stable jobs with dignified wages creates conditions for families to thrive, which is what we want for the working people of Joliet, Chicago and the state of Illinois. I look forward to leading our team and building power alongside workers in the workplace and their communities.” “The staff and board members at WWJ are excited to make this announcement and to move forward in the fight to build worker power in the logistics industry with new insight from the leadership that Marcos brings,” said Mark Meinster, chair of the WWJ Board of Directors. WWJ continues to work with members, staff, allies, and funders in building an organization that will win justice for warehouse workers and their communities. ###  Warehouse Workers for Justice is an Illinois-based worker center fighting for stable, living-wage jobs in warehouses and distribution centers. We educate workers about labor rights, teach folks how to enforce their rights, organize in the workplace and community and fight for public and private policies that promote full-time work at decent wages in the warehouse industry.
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