Warehouse workers have been the front line during the pandemic, providing a vital link between consumers and the goods and services that are needed. Their critical role in the supply chain has still not been recognized, as many of them are underpaid temporary workers with few rights
This fact makes the Warehouse Workers for Justice (WWJ) organization necessary.
Warehouse Workers for Justice is a worker center that fights for good living wages and working conditions in Illinois’ warehouse and transportation industry. The center creates initiatives that protects workers rights and ensures that they are compensated fairly. Offices are located in Joliet and Chicago.
The board of directors of WWJ has named Marcos Ceniceros as its new executive director. He brings front line organizational and community organizing experience to his new position.
Ceniceros grew up on the southwest side of Chicago to Mexican immigrants. As a result, from an early age, he understood the inequities that working families experienced.
He most recently held the position of WWJ’s interim Executive Director, after initially serving as its Associate Director. He joined the center in spring of 2021.
“Warehouse and logistics workers continue to go through many hardships,” Ceniceros said. “They are exacerbated by the pandemic, and there is no better time than now to organize workers to fight for better wages and better working conditions.”
As executive director, Ceniceros said he would continue advancing the center’s Worker Outreach Program. The program is designed to educate workers on their rights and fight for public and private policies that enforce them.
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 Ceniceros. “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.”
dallison@thetimesweekly.com
