Rachèl is Bend the Arc’s Chief Program Officer, supporting the strategies and staff of the Organizing Team, the Jeremiah Fellowship, the Leadership Development & Political Education Department, and the National Campaign Team. Rachèl joined the organization in late 2019 after several decades of work in progressive labor unions and national and community based organizing. Her movement portfolio includes work as the Director of the Retail Action Project (RAP), a worker center initiative of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) which organizes primarily low-income retail and grocery workers of color around workplace and community issues; Executive Director of Right to the City Alliance (RTTC), a national alliance of community-based organizations, academic institutions and legal experts fighting the ill-effects of gentrification across the globe; and Organizing Director of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, where she coordinated the union’s advocacy efforts, designed popular education curricula and trainings in public policy and organizing for rank-and-file union members and officers and was one of the lead coordinators of the 2005 New York City transit strike and the 2-year dues collection effort that followed. Rachèl is a proud mother of one son and one bonus daughter, is of Polish Ashkenazi and Haitian descent and in her spare time loves to solve puzzles and be in nature.