👋 Hi, I am Radu Stochita
🌹 Labor Expert 📣 Progressive Causes Communicator 📝 Freelance Journalist (Labor & Tech)
With experience in the Romanian, European and American labor movement, I can help you with your campaign!🇷🇴 Communications Clerk at National Trade Union Confederation Cartel ALFA (2021 - present).
🇺🇸 Communications Clerk at MSEA-SEIU 1989 (2022 - present)
📝 Writing about labor all over the web (Jacobin, Dissent, The Nation, Al Jazeera, etc.)
🇺🇸 MSEA-SEIU 1989
At MSEA-SEIU 1989, I focus on developing the visual identity for campaigns such as:
- Chipotle Workers in Augusta unionizing.
- Facebook Ads aiming to get people involved in the union movement.
- Building Maine Labor Allinace, a labor group focused on aiding small shops (NGOs, restaurants, etc.)
- Creating zines for employees in small shops to consider unionizing.
- Designing posters & stickers for people to show their support towards the unionizing drives.
🇷🇴 Cartel ALFA
At Cartel ALFA, I focus primarily on writing the weekly newsletter Portavocea Sindicală. I do press analysis regularly, connect with experts to connect on timely issues and coordinate interviews with union members.Additionally, with the aid of my colleagues, I work on developing and implementing campaigns such as:- Ratify C190 - an online campaign urging the Romanian Government to ratify the International Labor Organization convention against discrimination and harassment in the workplace.- Social Dialogue Law - an informative campaign, showing our audience how unions can enact under the current legislation.- Know your rights - informative digital and physical format campaign presenting the youth the rights they have in the workplace.
📝 Freelance Work
I started writing regularly in college, at first for Bowdoin Orient, then for Bowdoin Review.
My passion for labor got me pitching articles everywhere I could think of, trying to get my voice out.I publish occasionally a column on Cross-Broder Talks about the changes in US labor legislation and how it impacts the workers.
🇬🇧 English
Jan 2023 Jacobin In Cyprus, Food-Delivery Riders Went on Strike to Be Treated Like WorkersJan 2023 Context News How COVID-19 helped private hospitals bloom in RomaniaJan 2023 Equal Times Romania’s civil society wanted to protect whistleblowers; instead, they got “a slap in the face”Oct 2022 The Nation For Undergrads, the Best Extracurricular Is a Labor UnionAugust 2022 Al Jazeera Romania declares war on drugs after music festival deathJuly 2022 The Nation Contributed to the collective article What’s at Stake for Young VotersJune 2022 Dissent: The Isolation of Russian Antiwar AcademicsApril 2022 Al Jazeera: ‘The divide between Russian and global sciences is happening’April 2022 Jacobin: ‘We Want Longer Weekends - but Not Longer Weekdays’March 2022 Jacobin: How Trade Unions Are Helping With Ukraine’s Humanitarian CrisisMarch 2021 Jacobin: A Hospital in Flames Exposes Romania’s Collapsing Neoliberal Model
🇷🇴 Romanian
Oct 2022 Scoala9/Libertatea Student bursier la 59 de ani. „Oamenii ajung la pensie și se plafonează, lasă educația pe ultimul plan”Aug 2022 Mindcraft Stories
[Parola e depășită, dar metodele mai sigure de autentificare nu sunt folosite](Parola e depășită, dar metodele mai sigure de autentificare nu sunt folosite)July 2022 Mindcraft Stories
Substack vrea să schimbe modul în care citești presa. Un scop prea ambițios?Mar 2022 Mindcraft Stories NATO: un atac cibernetic poate activa articolul 5 Recommended nationally in Premiile Superscrieri.Mar 2022 SpotMedia Clauzele neconcurențiale pe piața muncii: americanii vor să renunțe la ele. Noi ce facem?Nov 2021 Newsweek Romania Salariul minim pe economie. Efectele creșterii lor asupra mediul de afaceriOct 2021 Newsweek Romania Digitalizarea nu rezolvă toate problemele. Riscurile pentru veniturile populației
🛫 Watson Fellowship
The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship is a one-year grant for purposeful, independent exploration outside the United States, awarded to graduating seniors nominated by one of 41 partner institutions.Radu Stochita's Watson plans include visiting Norway, Belgium, India, Nepal, and New Zealand to speak with labor activists, trade unions, historians, and researchers, learning how labor can unify a community. As he travels, he will post his findings in a weekly newsletter and relay the stories of the activists he meets in a podcast.
A history and sociology major, Stochita's awareness of labor issues began in 2012 when Romania—his home country—announced austerity measures, slashing wages and pensions. His mother leapt into action by organizing hospital workers and union members to strike. "The austerity measures made me dislike injustice, despising the precarious situation in which the government threw my family, while others were getting rich through privatization schemes," he explained in his application."Communities can still utilize labor as a tool for building solidarity, and...unions still have a role in our societies," he writes. "Despite the fall in membership in the past decades, unions are making a comeback in the United States and across the globe, since workers have understood that no one will protect them if they do not come together."
All information comes from Watson Foundation and Bowdoin College websites.
About
🎓 I am a first-generation low-income student from Romania who recently graduated Bowdoin College with Honors in Sociology.✈️ I am currently a Watson Fellow, traveling the world and learning about how labor activism builds communities.🍞 While I can talk for hours about labor in my free-time I enjoy cycling, baking bread, illustrating and engaging in never-ending conversations.
Education
🇺🇸 Bowdoin College (2018 - 2022)
- Dual-degree in History & Sociology
- Honors in Sociology: Crunch as a reality amongst aspiring and current game developers.
- Recipient of Davis Scholarship, multiple Monthly Mini Grants, Grua/O’Connell Fellowship, Summer Research Fellowships and Davis Initiative for Peace Project.🌎 ILO (2021) - Digitization of the workplace course🇮🇹 UWC Adriatic (2016 - 2018)🇷🇴 CNNT Pucioasa (2014 - 2016)
📧 Contact
If you would like to work with me, write me an e-mail!
If you just want to chat and get my take on a specific subject, write me, and let’s start a conversation!