Francesca Colonnese, Local 4121

Member Spotlight is a segment of the Region 6 Newsletter that profiles members from different Region 6 Locals and organizing campaigns each month. Get to know your fellow UAW members from across many industries and states!

My name is Francesca Colonnese, and I’m an ASE Head Steward at UAW Local 4121 and a PhD candidate in English literature at the University of Washington. For my academic research, I study how to apply concepts about temporal perception to 19th century poetry, but my day-to-day consists of working as an instructor, teaching writing skills to the huge range of students here at UW. There is so much behind-the-scenes lesson planning, assignment grading, and administrative juggling that goes on for every hour of class I actually teach.

When I was an undergrad at Caltech, I never imagined being part of a large region of unionized student workers–-even though we needed the wages, benefits, and protections of unionization. I’m excited for the fight at Caltech and here at UAW 4121 as I lead the healthcare portion of bargaining negotiations. My union peers are a little afraid of how much I enjoy talking about the intricacies of medical insurance but I do this because it literally saves lives. Fellow 4121 members have told me how our good health insurance has helped them get the care they need to keep going, and how seeing our union stand up for mental health and gender affirming care has made them feel included at UW. No matter our workplaces, we shouldn’t have to sacrifice our health to do our jobs