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For Immediate Release: January 30, 2023

Media Contact: Lisa Thomas, lisa@alignny.org, (347) 415-6431

Executive Director Maritza Silva-Farrell 

to move on after successful 12-year tenure at ALIGN

New York, NY – ALIGN announced today that Maritza Silva-Farrell will move on as its Executive Director in February. Silva-Farrell began her ALIGN career in 2010 as an organizer before being named Executive Director in 2016, and has been a torchbearer for the movement—building bridges between labor, community, and grassroots groups; challenging corporate power and fighting alongside workers for better conditions and healthier communities; shifting toward a renewable energy economy; and winning transformational change for New York City and State.

Under her tenure, ALIGN transformed the post-Sandy Build It Back program to rebuild NYC while bringing career jobs to impacted workers; won a Walmart-free NYC and defeated Amazon’s HQ2 bid in Long Island City; established the Climate Works for All and Transform Don’t Trash coalitions, facilitating collaboration between community and labor that won unprecedented policies like Local Law 97 and Commercial Waste Zones for NYC; helped pass the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, requiring the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050; passed the first-of-its-kind NY HERO Act during the pandemic to create health and safety standards reducing the spread of airborne infectious diseases in the workplace; and this past year, won the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, exposing harmful productivity quotas in the warehousing industry and empowering workers to know their rights. 

“Maritza has been an important force during her time at ALIGN,” said RWDSU President and ALIGN board member Stuart Applebaum. “Whether she’s organizing on the ground, advocating for new protections for workers and our environment, or doing the difficult job of implementing legislation won, she brings fierce determination, vision, and ingenuity to the work and has been instrumental in making New York a leader in our movement. We thank Maritza for her leadership and wish her great success in her next venture; she leaves behind an outstanding team who will carry the work forward, fighting for a more just, sustainable New York.”

“ALIGN has been an unforgettable and deeply rewarding movement home for me,” said Silva-Farrell. “ALIGN’s mission has always been to link struggles around a broad set of issues and hold the tension of opposites, knowing that two things that feel at odds can in fact be aligned. And our ability to straddle these kinds of perceived contradictions has led to transformational, structural change. I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished through our relentless commitment to climate jobs and racial justice.”

ALIGN’s Board of Directors will oversee a search for the next Executive Director. Deputy Director Lucas Shapiro, who has decades of movement-building experience in New York and with ALIGN, will assume the role of Interim Executive Director following Maritza’s transition. 

About ALIGN

ALIGN (Alliance for a Greater New York) is a longstanding alliance of labor and community organizations united for a just and sustainable New York. ALIGN works at the intersection of economy, environment, and equity to make change and build movement. Our model addresses the root causes of economic injustice by forging strategic coalitions, shaping the public debate through strategic communications, and developing policy solutions that make an impact.

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