Maria Svart is a Deputy Executive Director at Jobs to Move America. For 25 years she has been an organizer and educator for workplace and community power, including eight years with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and 13 years at the helm of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) during a period of massive growth. Her lineage is full of union fighters, including a miner, department store clerk, firefighter, and city planner. Maria grew up in Oregon watching multi-national corporations pit timber workers against environmentalists in order to maximize their short-term profits instead of long-term ecosystem conservation or sustainable, quality jobs. With DSA she built a national organizing program driven through locally rooted chapters, power building campaigns, and a member-driven training and education system.
Maria has a Bachelors from the University of Chicago, where she studied social movement history and gender studies. It is there that she first learned to organize through a solidarity campaign with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, in honor of her undocumented Mexican grandparents and in recognition that all workers and communities are stronger when every worker has a voice.