Meeting Topic: Vote NO on Tax Payer Deception Act Ballot Measure
May Speaker: Amy Hines-Shaikh founded Wild Cat Consulting, LLC in June of 2018 after the Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court decision to help strengthen labor unions in the wake of right wing attacks. Kim Carter Martinez joined the partnership in February of 2020 to further the mission of racial, social and economic justice for all.
Amy was born in Cork, Ireland and immigrated to Aberdeen, Scotland at the age of three, and then immigrated again to the United States when she was six years old. Her father mixed drilling mud on oil rigs all over the world, which is why she very deeply believes in a just transition for fossil fuel workers to the green economy of the future. Her first concerted organizing effort was a petition targeting the Principal of her middle school to take down the display of a sexist poem in Sandy, Utah. In that case, collective action did not get the goods, but the Principal allowed Amy to display her own feminist poem next to the misogynist one.
After graduating from the University of Utah in Political Science and Women’s Studies, Amy gave herself a graduation present of getting arrested with the Shundahai Network at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site in solidarity with the Shoshone people on Mother’s Day. This was first of many arrests throughout her life for social and economic justice issues. Later that year she went on to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in Labor Relations and Research and got to join her first labor Union – the UAW Local 2322 – and get health benefits for the first time since leaving Europe fifteen years prior.
Amy has worked for many Labor Unions within her career, including the UAW, SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, and CWA. She was a Legislative and Political Director for a statewide labor union for six years, and the Executive Director for another statewide labor union prior to that. Amy has many years of experience in all three sides of the “union triangle” – organizing, bargaining, and political affairs.
In 2015 Amy got her second Master’s degree in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management from George Mason University in Arlington, VA. In 2016 Amy joined the Democratic Party to vote for Bernie Sanders in the primaries and hasn’t looked back. She regularly serves as a delegate to the California Democratic Party.
When not working Amy is spending time with her husband and two children or reading with a cup of Irish breakfast tea in hand.
For more on Amy’s resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-hines-shaikh
