Who We Are
The Worker Center is a grassroots labor organization for all workers — unionized or not. We are member-driven and member-led, meaning everyone gets a voice in our priorities and strategy. As a 501(c)3, we have a Board of Directors, many of whom are active in labor, community, and justice organizing in and around Southeast Michigan.
Our Members
Members are the core of the Worker Center. Membership is open to workers from all sectors, whether union members or not, living or working within Washtenaw, Jackson, Livingston, or Hillsdale counties who commit to helping build fairer workplaces and more just and sustainable communities. Members are encouraged to:
Attend our monthly meetings;
Participate in decision-making;
Serve on committees;
Organize actions, trainings, and events.
Our Leadership
The general operations of the Worker Center is governed by the Board of Directors, which includes the Principal Officers: President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. In January 2022, the Board of Directors were appointed by the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation delegate body and the Principal Officers were elected by a majority vote of the Board of Directors. After the Worker Center reaches 200 members, the Board of Directors and Principal Officers will be elected by the membership. Officers serve two year terms and the Board members who are not Officers serve one year terms.
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President
Daric has been serving as a delegate with the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation since 2015. Since that time he has been working across Washtenaw County to talk with workers, and help them learn how to affect change in their workplaces through organizing and collective action. In 2018 he was elected as President of the Eastern Michigan University Federation of Teachers, and served in contract negotiation roles within his local. His work continues now at the Huron Valley Worker Organizing and Research Center, hoping to provide the resources and platforms workers need to stand up together.
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Vice President & Treasurer
Liz Ratzloff is the Vice President of HV-WORC. In her role, Liz is excited to support the membership through the facilitation of trainings and helping to develop strategic campaign plans. Liz currently works for the Labor Network for Sustainability which is building a powerful labor-climate movement to secure an ecologically sustainable and economically just future where everyone can make a living on a living planet.
She got her start as an organizer fighting for abortion access and local LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination protections as a college student at Michigan State. While getting her Masters in Environmental Informatics and Conservation Ecology, she began working as the staff organizer for the University of Michigan graduate employees union, GEO AFT Local 3550. In 2020, Liz helped lead a campus-wide strike for a safe and just pandemic response and led efforts to establish a multi-union People’s Budget, centering the priorities of workers and the broader community through participatory budgeting.
In addition to her role as the HV-WORC Vice-President, Liz founded and co-chairs the Just Transition Committee at the AFL-CIO Huron Valley Area Labor Federation where she is working with other union members to build the strong, labor-climate movement needed to move the local economy off of fossil fuels, while ensuring good jobs for workers.
Liz lives in Ypsi with her fiance, Meg, and their two dogs and two cats. In her spare time she enjoys working on home remodeling projects, making and eating fresh pasta, and painting with watercolor and acrylics.
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Board Member
Ian Robinson has been the President of the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, since 2014. In April of 2022, he became Interim President of the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium.
He was the President of LEO (AFT-MI 6244), the union of Lecturers, Librarians, Archivists Curators on the three campuses of the University of Michigan, from 2016 through 2021. Ian has been a Lecturer and Research Scientist in the Sociology Department and the Residential College's Social Theory and Practice Program since the Fall of 1998, and was a member of the LEO organizing committee that helped to get the union started in the early 2000s. He has been committed to helping workers to organize ever since. Ian's doctoral dissertation was on the deeper causes of Canada-US union density divergence from the mid-1960s. His research and writing include work on local wages and working conditions in Washtenaw County, the impacts of neoliberal economic restructuring on workers and unions in North America, worker and democracy-friendly alternatives to neoliberal trade policies such as NAFTA and the WTO, and the potential scope of ethical consumption. He teaches courses on the dynamics of neoliberal globalization and alternatives to it, on ethical consumption, on the uses of social science theory for social change, and organizing.
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Board Member
Since 1988, Jennifer Jones has been a member of UAW local 1975 Clerical & Secretarial staff at Eastern Michigan University. She also attended EMU, where she studied anatomy & physiology, exercise science and Spanish. For 5 years, Jennifer was a representative to the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation, for the Huron Valley Democratic Socialists of America, an honorary affiliate of the HVALF. Since 2016, Jennifer has also been involved with a small group of international activists and educators. They have organized movie and speaker series with national and international guests to share the present and historical effects of U.S. policies on Mexico and Latin America.
In the fall of 2023, Jennifer became the chair of the UAWD International Solidarity committee and joined the Mexico Solidarity Project, which has increased her knowledge of and connection with other workers’ and organizers' struggles.
Jennifer loves traveling south of the U.S. border to learn and connect with people, histories and nature. At home, you may see her at a protest or on a picket line.
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Board Member
Tad Wysor spent over forty years working on vehicle emissions regulations as an engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and over twenty as a member and officer in his AFGE local 3907, where he remains an active member. For the past twelve years, he’s also been a leader in WeROC, a local faith and labor community organizing project with regional and national affiliations, focused on strategic local action campaigns that bring marginalized voices in Washtenaw County into active participation and leadership, to build power and win on issues they choose. He remains active in labor and community organizing because as he says, "Especially at a pivotal moment like this, smart, strategic, broad-based, bottom-up organizing is our only real path if we're going to turn things around, and create the kind of world we're all so hungry for."
Tad lives in Ypsilanti Township, which his wife Wanda and pup Bubba use as a base for camping and road trips whenever possible -- which recently include visits to cuddle their first grandbaby! He enjoys strumming, fiddling, and singing with friends, but no recording contracts so far.
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Board Member
Michelle Regalado Deatrick is a policy analyst, farmer, technical writer and poet. Passionate about empowering workers and economic justice, Michelle is the SE Michigan contact for the National Writers Union, a member of UAW Local 2320, and a former spokesperson for Michigan One Fair Wage.
Also passionate about upholding climate and environmental justice, Michelle is the Chair and Founder of the DNC Environment and Climate Crisis Council, founder of Washtenaw County's first Environmental Council, member of the National Advisory Boards of Climate Power and OnePointFive Climate Pledge, and a Board Director for the Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy. She is a former Vice Chair of the Washtenaw County Commission and holds degrees from Wesleyan, Harvard and the University of Michigan. Michelle lives with her family on an 80-acre farm east of Ann Arbor.
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Board Member
Mitch is a union organizer and field representative for the American Federation of Teachers Michigan and has experience in organizing new bargaining units, leading union contract negotiations, and contract enforcement work. Mitch is passionate about working in solidarity alongside working families in Michigan fighting for higher wages, better benefits, and respect in their workplaces and he hopes to continue to spend his career supporting workers in the fight for economic, racial, and social justice.
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HVALF Communications Coordinator & Field Organizer
Mark is the Communications Coordinator and Field Organizer with Huron Valley Area Labor Federation. Mark helped form the first student labor union representing undergraduate student workers at U-M: the ResStaff Allied Organization (RAO), where he served as president for the 2024-25 academic year and remains a member of RAO's bargaining team. He also organized a Students for International Labor Solidarity at U-M, an ethical-purchasing student group on campus (formerly USAS). Mark supports HV-WORC in its mission to build worker power across Southeast Michigan, assisting with the Worker Center's communications, event planning, and local organizing.
Our Partners
The Worker Center welcomes members from every sector and walk of life. But we know that we can’t go it alone. We rely on collaboration, partnerships, and action with other organizations in our community.
In the Labor Movement, we work with the Huron Valley Area Labor Federation (HVALF) and its union affiliates across Southeast Michigan. Delegates from these unions were critical in founding the Worker Center, and in supporting us in the fight for better conditions for all workers.
We also coordinate with HVALF’s Rapid Response Network, which moves people quickly into action locally when workers and rights are under attack.
Many of our members are active in community and justice work beyond traditional Labor issues; this is part of what makes us strong as a Worker Center. Reach out if you’re part of a local organization that would like to partner with us.