Anthony Thomas is a strategic planning and organizational management professional who focuses on the intersection of politics, policy, strategy, and advocacy. He focuses on building systems and operationalizing campaigns to procure funding or increase public engagement for clients. In addition, he’s advised leadership teams on investments, managed external consulting teams for clients and helped create internal processes to increase impact and influence.
Anthony currently serves as a Managing Director for Actum, LLC with almost two decades of experience leading successful campaigns from congressional and legislative speaker elections, to voter education and issue advocacy efforts. Prior to joining Actum, Anthony founded the The Uptown Table, where he partnered with clients ranging from large workforce development organizations, to labor unions, to economic justice and organizing nonprofits.
Previously, he served as the Senior Director for Strategic Planning at the Consortium for Worker Education (CWE). He also served as the Political & Legislative Director for the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO helping unions and affiliates build power. Recently Anthony led a successful voter turnout campaign in New York City that has been heralded as leading to the election of Mayor Eric Adams and he led the campaign for New York City’s first Black City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. He has directed political and legislative programs in the labor movement in New York and Chicago, managed citywide campaigns in New York and San Francisco, and city, state and federal races around the country.
Anthony began working in politics in Missouri managing campaigns and served as the Chief of Staff of the Missouri Democratic Party. He serves as an adjunct professor to students at SUNY Empire State College and New York University. Additionally, he serves on the board of Community Voices Heard Power (CVHP) helping support organizing and power building and on the advisory committee of Forward Majority. He has a BA in History from the University of Missouri and a MPA in Public Administration and Leadership from New York University.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of U.S. workers involved in work stoppages in 2018 reached its highest point since the mid-1980s. The resurgence of the use of strikes and worker activists withholding labor is set against the backdrop of enormous societal challenges like wealth and income inequality, climate change, and a lack of affordable, quality health care.
These powerful strikes also come at a time when unions themselves are facing innumerable challenges: declining memberships and dues, increasing employer offensives, a weakening of the labor law, and a changing economy that makes traditional methods of union organizing more difficult, costly and less successful.
We know that unions raise the standard of working conditions and wages for all workers, strengthen the overall economy and decrease inequality. Since the 1970s, the labor movement has seen a significant decline in strength, density and strikes - one of their key sources of leverage and expressions of power. Consequently, the decline of union density in the past forty years has coincided with and contributed to a modern economy that doesn’t work for working people.
This class is an exploration of the political expression of labor unions and seeks to provide students with practical skills to participate in the current labor movement. The class will tell the story of the U.S. labor movement and seek to examine the ways in which unions have driven social change. Furthermore, the class will analyze what conditions were necessary to successfully ignite change and seek to apply those learnings to the current labor movement and political work of unions.
With an emphasis on developing both knowledge of unions and their relationship to political change and practical skills in labor movement advocacy, this course will provide an overview of the history, recent trends, and current topics as well as provide students with a working knowledge of organizing and advocacy skills.
Elections In Action is for those that are interested in learning how a campaign works from start to finish. Whether one is working a local to national campaign the structure is still the same. This seven-session course will provide an overview and training in modern day campaign planning and implementation all the way from preparing as a candidate, staff roles, media, fundraising and Get Out the Vote strategies.
Elections In Action is for those that are interested in learning how a campaign works from start to finish. Whether one is working a local to national campaign the structure is still the same. This seven-session course will provide an overview and training in modern day campaign planning and implementation all the way from preparing as a candidate, staff roles, media, fundraising and Get Out the Vote strategies.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of U.S. workers involved in work stoppages in 2018 reached its highest point since the mid-1980s. The resurgence of the use of strikes and worker activists withholding labor is set against the backdrop of enormous societal challenges like wealth and income inequality, climate change, and a lack of affordable, quality health care.
These powerful strikes also come at a time when unions themselves are facing innumerable challenges: declining memberships and dues, increasing employer offensives, a weakening of the labor law, and a changing economy that makes traditional methods of union organizing more difficult, costly and less successful.
We know that unions raise the standard of working conditions and wages for all workers, strengthen the overall economy and decrease inequality. Since the 1970s, the labor movement has seen a significant decline in strength, density and strikes - one of their key sources of leverage and expressions of power. Consequently, the decline of union density in the past forty years has coincided with and contributed to a modern economy that doesn’t work for working people.
This class is an exploration of the political expression of labor unions and seeks to provide students with practical skills to participate in the current labor movement. The class will tell the story of the U.S. labor movement and seek to examine the ways in which unions have driven social change. Furthermore, the class will analyze what conditions were necessary to successfully ignite change and seek to apply those learnings to the current labor movement and political work of unions.
With an emphasis on developing both knowledge of unions and their relationship to political change and practical skills in labor movement advocacy, this course will provide an overview of the history, recent trends, and current topics as well as provide students with a working knowledge of organizing and advocacy skills.
This course provides an introduction to the political institutions and processes through which public policy is made and implemented in the United States (although the key concepts are applicable to other political systems as well). The course also introduces students to the tools of policy analysis. The first half of the course presents the major models of policymaking and policy analysis. The second half of the course applies these concepts to specific policy areas such as health, education, and environment, as illustrated by real-world case studies. The course emphasizes written and oral communication through the development of professional memo-writing and presentation skills.