Leadership

Megan Jang Shan (she/her) is a worker at the unionized REI store in Durham, NC. She helped organize the store from the beginning, through the union election in May of 2023, and also represents her store in bargaining for a first union contract. Since becoming involved in the labor movement, she has worked to support other organizing workers in the North Carolina Triangle area, and is a member of the NC AFL-CIO’s Triangle Labor Council and the Durham Workers Assembly. She also enjoys singing with the Durham Labor Choir.

Megan is a long-time North Carolina resident, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Writing Seminars. She hopes to pursue labor law to further advocate for workers’ rights.

Isaiah Withers is a Senior Organizer with Forward Justice based in North Carolina. Rooted in rural Black working-class communities, his organizing work spans base-building, leadership development, and campaign strategy across the U.S. South. He has organized frontline Black workers in poultry plants and industrial workplaces, partnering with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and the U.S. Department of Labor to address wage theft, unsafe conditions, and racial discrimination. His work is driven by a commitment to advancing justice, safety, and labor rights for Black workers in rural communities across the South.

Tony Macias (he/him) is a native of the U.S. South, and an interpreter/translator and popular education trainer with over 20 years of experience in the labor, migration, and international solidarity sectors. Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) gave him his first chance to practice leadership in a transparent, strategic and collaborative way, and where he first understood the potential of cross-class and multigenerational collaboration to win human rights for farmworkers. Later, Tony was an International Team Member with Witness for Peace in Mexico, and served as one of the coordinators of the 2010 US Social Forum Language Justice Team. He went on to complete a master’s degree in Latin American Studies, and co-founded the Austin Language Justice Collective, the tilde Language Justice Cooperative, and Wave – A Language Liberation Hub. Tony is convinced that solidarity is the natural state of affairs, and is nurtured when we form relationships across differences to build the power we need to achieve a common purpose. 

Melinda Wiggins is originally from the Mississippi Delta, where her family still resides. She grew up in a segregated working class community and is the daughter and granddaughter of sharecroppers. Melinda was the first in her family to graduate from college. She studied political science and history at Millsaps College, where she began exploring the civil rights movement in the US South, was active with the anti-apartheid movement on campus, and worked with the MS PEER legislative committee helping to redraw district lines in the Mississippi Delta. Melinda moved to Durham, North Carolina to study at Duke Divinity School, where she focused on liberation and feminist theology.

Melinda got involved with Student Action with Farmworkers as an intern and served as the Program Director and then Executive Director. Through her nearly 30 years at SAF, Melinda led and supported efforts to create learning communities for young people interested in workers’ rights, facilitated community-labor alliances, built greater support for equity within the nonprofit sector, and educated philanthropy about the need to support agricultural workers in the South. In March 2012, she was honored by the Obama White House as a recipient of the “Cesar Chavez Champion of Change” award. Melinda helped initiate two key statewide coalitions in North Carolina–the Adelante Education Coalition and the Farmworker Advocacy Network—focused on immigrant and farmworker rights. She co-edited The Human Cost of Food, Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor, and Advocacy. While at SAF, Melinda was engaged with a number of community and worker organizing efforts, including Wake Forest School of Medicine Center for Worker Health; STITCH, a group that built solidarity between women workers in the US and in Central America; and Windcall Institute, a social justice residency program.

After transitioning from SAF, Melinda worked with the Labor Innovations for the 21st Center (LIFT) Fund as the Director of Strategy and Operations for three years. While at LIFT, she was able to connect with worker centers and labor unions throughout the US South and across the country. She was a part of LIFT’s launch of the Southern Workers Opportunity Fund and Imperial Valley grantmaking, the creation of grantee support programs that incorporated training, coaching, and rest, and the development of LIFT’s internal capacity, staffing, policies, fundraising, and financial management. She currently serves on the board of Migrant Clinicians Network and participates in the US Campaign to End Child Labor. Melinda continues to live in Durham with her partner Dave and cat Cocoa.

Yadira Paz-Martinez is originally from Clinton, North Carolina and is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants who work as blue-collar laborers and farmworkers. She pursued a degree in Public Policy at Duke University, with a minor in History and a Certificate in Human Rights. As a first-generation, Yadira served as the Vice President for Equity and Outreach in Duke Student Government and as the co-president of Duke Beyond Borders. Committed to farmworker justice, she was an Into the Fields intern with Student Action with Farmworkers. In the summer of 2023, she worked in the U.S. House of Representatives through the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), serving in the office of Colorado Representative Yadira Caraveo. Most recently, she worked at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) on civil rights litigation and with the Kamala Harris campaign on outreach efforts.

Yadira was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, conducting research on the socialization of farmworkers in rural North Carolina and the impact of geopolitical forces on their lived experiences. She completed her thesis with distinction, titled “The Undocumented Republican Latino Vote.” A 2024 Truman Scholar, Yadira aspires to pursue a JD to advance labor rights for farmworkers and low-wage workers across the United States.