Marissa Nuncio

Director

Marissa Nuncio has been building power with garment workers since 2001 when she joined Sweatshop Watch, a co-founding organization of the GWC, where her role was to support the newly established Center and its first campaigns. Inspired by work at the intersection of law and organizing, Marissa went on to earn her Juris Doctorate at Loyola Law School and is a member of the National Lawyers Guild. She has represented unions, car wash workers, day laborers, and farmworkers and is proud to have returned to the GWC in 2013 to help frame its strategic organizing direction with its members and amazing staff. Marissa holds a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from Mount Holyoke College.

Daisy Gonzalez

Lead Organizer (2018-2021), Organizing Director (2021-2022), Campaign Director (2023)

Daisy Gonzalez has over 10 years of experience in community organizing around issues of responsible development, union jobs, local hiring, and affordable housing. She is deeply committed to building power alongside low-income communities of color. She co-led the effort in 2021 to pass garment worker led legislation — the Garment Worker Protection Act —  in California. Daisy is proud to be a part of the GWC team and to work with garment workers everyday to fight exploitation in the industry.

Ana Cisneros Alvarez

Legal Director

Ana has over a decade of experience in workers’ rights. From organizing, to zealously advocating for the rights of low-income communities of color, Ana has experience in various facets of the struggle for justice. She has worked at worker centers, non-profit legal service providers, and government agencies. Ana feels privileged to be able to play a role in the mission of GWC and work with a phenomenal team and dedicated members.

Kathryn Melendez

Health and Safety Organizer

Kathryn organizes member committees to transform their worksites and achieve the Garment Worker Center’s industry-wide goals. They began organizing in Los Angeles by recruiting members and conducting community-based research for an ally worker center in 2016, where they developed a deep commitment to grassroots immigrant movements. She moved on to use her field organizing skills in research on immigrant social service use and base-building to expand outdoor access for urban communities. They decided to return, in 2020, to the worker rights movement where they could focus on member leadership development. When not at GWC, Kathryn enjoys LA’s outdoors and participates in transnational solidarity organizing. 

Liz Limeta 

Leadership Development Organizer

Liz is an organizer with over 6 years of community organizing experience. Her passion for organizing in the labor movement began after she interned at the Garment Worker Center in 2016 where she learned about brand campaigns through her work on the Ross Exploits Campaign. Her organizing is influenced by her experience having grown up on unceded Tongva land, Pico-Union, and witnessing the exploitation her parents experienced as garment workers. She is excited to build popular and political education approaches into the leadership development of garment workers.

Nayantara Banerjee

Industry Researcher & Strategist 

Nayantara Banerjee is a former small business owner with over a decade of experience in custom garment tailoring & alterations. She studied Fashion Design as an undergraduate, and pursued graduate studies researching Labor & Responsibility in the Apparel Industry. After several years of volunteering with Los Angeles’ Garment Worker Center, including facilitating creative sewing and pattern-making classes to upskill members, Nayantara is honored to work alongside garment workers in campaigns and research that help to transform the garment industry.

David Ferrándiz

Wage Clinic Assistant

As Wage Clinic Assistant, David conducts intakes and supports garment workers to recover their unpaid wages. Having previously organized day laborers in LA’s Fashion District, and through his ongoing transnational solidarity organizing with CISPES, David utilizes popular and political educational approaches to collective struggles for economic and social justice. David is a history enthusiast and is working towards his MA in Latin American Studies from Cal State LA.

Santa Puac

Member since 2015 | Organizer 2022

Santa has been a seamstress since she came to this country. Now that she is an Organizer, she is proud to work and help the community and also to help her family. She feels she is a great support for her children and husband.

Rebecca Rivera

Operations Manager & Bookkeeper

As a designer of her own sustainable fashion brand, Rebecca has advocated for a change in the industry since 2014. She learned about GWC in 2020 while giving an interview about the intersection of injustices between people and planet, and quickly reached out to volunteer with the organization. Volunteering led her to apply for a position on staff, and she continues to be awed by the work of the team at GWC.

Jonathan Coleman

Communications Manager

Jonathan comes to GWC with a background in organizing, campaigning, journalism, communications and research around critical sites of struggle in LA: the 2028 Olympics, Echo Park Lake, hotels as housing, police expansion, and fareless transit. He moved to Los Angeles the same year GWC opened its doors and is proud to be a part of the fight for garment workers rights and to work alongside garment workers to build power.

Orlando Martínez

Membership Support Coordinator

Orlando is an aspiring social worker with 5 years of experience in social justice work. A Boyle Heights native, he began his career in organizing with InnerCity Struggle where he worked on Educational Justice and Housing Justice campaigns alongside families in his community. He is currently pursuing his Master’s in Social Work at CSU Dominguez Hills where his program focuses on Critical Race Theory, centering the empowerment of marginalized identities against the systemic discrimination they face. Orlando is excited to work with members to address systemic barriers to the resources they need to lead healthy lives.

Gloria Miguel

Organizer

Gloria Miguel has worked in the garment industry for 16 years and has been a GWC member for 4 years. And now she is a part of the GWC staff as an organizer. She is so excited to be part of the staff because she knows firsthand the problems that a garment worker goes through in the factories. Gloria is proud to help inform and empower garment workers.

Lupe Sanchez

Organizer 

Lupe Sanchez joins the GWC with over six years of experience in community organizing with students, undocumented immigrants, and tenants. She is an undocumented immigrant from Puebla, Mexico and grew up in South Central LA. She was the first in her family to attend college and graduated from UCLA in 2019 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Labor & Workplace Studies. In her free time, Lupe enjoys strength training, going out for boba, and spending time with her family.

Rebecca Betancourt 

Member Support Coordinator 

Rebecca has over 10 years of experience working with asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. They graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Gender, Ethnicity, Multicultural Studies from Cal Poly Pomona in 2018 and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Latin American Studies at Cal State LA.

Kathy Sorto

Case Manager

Kathy is a case manager with experience advocating for housing rights for communities most impacted by the pandemic. She is deeply passionate about sustainable fashion and working towards creating an ethical supply chain at all levels. Kathy is excited to be working alongside garment workers and a dedicated team of staff in an effort to transform the garment industry.

Anahí Cruz

Coalition Coordinator 

Anahi was the first in her family to attend college and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology Law and Society from the University of California, Riverside in 2019. In June of 2022, she graduated with a Master of Public Policy from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs with an emphasis in Immigration and Latinx Social Policy. As a first-generation woman of color from a mixed-status family, advocating for low-income immigrant communities is her passion. With strong policy research and analytical skills as well as interpersonal communication skills that have allowed her to successfully advocate for workers, BIPOC, and immigrants in her community, Anahí is dedicated to spearheading and maintaining GWC’s coalition building efforts.

Salma Rojas

Youth Organizer

Originally from a working class immigrant family in Phoenix Arizona, Salma Rojas has always been drawn to issues at the intersection of immigration, race, class, and labor. In 2017, she moved to Los Angeles to study Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College, where she organized on-campus  workers to combat exploitative work practices. Once she graduated in 2021, she started working as a tenant organizer at the Coalition for Economic Survival and transitioned into the Youth Organizer position at GWC in December 2022. She is honored and excited to work with youth and garment workers to continue instilling radical social change.