Olivia Swisher is a dedicated third-generation teacher and UFT Chapter Leader at MS 821 Sunset Park Prep. A passionate advocate for her colleagues, she represented rank-and-file members on the 2023 Contract Negotiations Committee as a Tier VI member.

Before working for the DOE, Olivia worked as a museum educator at MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Jewish Museum, as well as a media and library assistant at an independent school and a gas station attendant. Her career change into public school teaching exposed her to the challenges and inequities faced by both educators and students, motivating her to run for chapter leader to make a meaningful difference in her school community.

Since being elected chapter leader, Olivia has drawn on her training from Labor Notes’ Secrets of a Successful Organizer to introduce collective problem-solving and organizing as a winning strategy for solving workplace issues.  Under her leadership, the chapter has won numerous improvements in teaching and learning conditions at their school. Some of their chapter wins include: reprogramming the entire school to ensure equity across all grades and subjects, a two-year campaign for a second dean to improve school safety, establishing a SAVE Room as per New York State regulations, ensuring teachers and students have basic instructional supplies including books for a multilingual library for newcomers, protecting paraprofessionals from being assigned duties outside of their job description, ensuring long-term substitutes are working under the correct status, resolving numerous outstanding per-diem and per-session issues, organizing work stoppages for adequate PPE during the pandemic, and most recently, pushing back on administrative micromanagement with regards to the HMH ELA curriculum. 

In addition to her work as a teacher and union leader, Olivia is a Labor Notes’ Secrets of a Successful Organizer trainer, helping to empower educators, civil servants, healthcare workers, and union members from diverse sectors to transform their workplaces. 

Olivia is a committed union activist who believes that it is time for us, working educators, to lead our union—one that puts our voices and needs first. Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions, and when we fight for ourselves, we fight for the future of our students and the profession we love. We can build a stronger, more just union that stands up for all of us. Let's transform our union—together.