Doug Moore is the Executive Director of UDW Local 3930. He started working with AFSCME
in 2000 as a regional administrator. During his time there, he was tasked with organizing
workers in San Antonio, Texas, which was a Right-to-Work state—a law that diminishes the
power of unions in workplaces by making dues that keep unions afloat optional
“They said they lost a lot of membership, I think [they had] 1,400 members. I said, ‘Ok, well how many do you have now.’ and they looked at me and they said, ‘67’…when I left there, we got about 1,200 members.”
Doug Moore is a people’s person, which has aided in his organizing skills. He previously worked on Former Governor Ted Strickland’s campaign in Ohio in which he helped him win the election solely from knocking on doors and phone banking across the state. He even got a personal congratulations from the newly elected governor during his inauguration speech! Strickland’s campaign was assisted by organized labor due to his support for unions.
Doug began in grassroots organizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). They used to house ironing boards which farm workers would use as tables for voter registration booths and boycotts. Ironing boards were used because of how easy they were to set up and travel with. This is where Doug began working with civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. The CWA would often support UFW boycotts. It was at UFW actions where Doug also met actor Martin Sheen, an active supporter of organized labor, mentioning that Martin would seek him out in crowds. Moore credits the vision for the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW) to Chavez,
“Farm workers have wives and these wives are domestic workers…they’re getting treated worse than the farm workers!… it was [Cesar Chavez’s] vision to organize domestic workers.”
Doug points to decades’ old policies that exclude farm and domestic workers from overtime rights when he states that domestic workers still have much progress to make,
“Domestic workers, and what they do, is rooted in slavery. Those were your first domestic workers and that still haunts this industry today in terms of wages and working conditions.”
