Brandon Mancilla was elected Region 9A Director in 2022 in the first ever direct elections for the UAW’s International Executive Board. In the nearly four years since, he has been proud to fight alongside the membership to win record contracts across all sectors; support new organizing drives representing thousands of workers in five states; and build the foundation for working class political power from Maine to Puerto Rico.

Brandon joined the UAW as a member of the Harvard Graduate Students Union-UAW Local 5118 and was elected the local’s first president. As a graduate worker he joined the organizing drive at Harvard, which delivered one of the largest private sector organizing victories in the last 25 years. He served on the strike coordinating team during the local’s 29-day strike in 2019, then joined the temporary organizing staff in 2020. As president, he helped build the new local by developing member-led committees to address contract enforcement, anti-harassment organizing, and citywide labor solidarity efforts. Under his leadership, Local 5118 went back on strike and won a successor contract in 2021.

Brandon has a master’s degree in history from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from Williams College. He lives near his family in his hometown of Queens, New York, with his partner Ashley and their cat Pencil.

Brandon is proud to be a third-generation union member from a working-class immigrant family in New York City. After his family left Guatemala during the brutal civil war in the 1980s, his grandfather joined a union in Long Island’s packaging industry. His mom works in the care industry, and his dad is a proud member of 32BJ SEIU to this day. His commitment to building worker power comes from seeing how union membership allowed his family to achieve a level of stability that working-class immigrants in non-union jobs rarely have.