Alex Orozco was raised in the working-class neighborhoods of the East San Fernando Valley. He understands many of our and our students’ experiences, having watched his parents work incredibly hard to provide for their family, and entering LAUSD elementary schools as an English Learner. As an immigrant brought here by his parents at the age of 3, he understands the struggles that many Angelenos are facing. With his parents’ determination he was able to complete his education in LAUSD, and like many of our students faced housing insecurity that saw him attend 7 elementary schools in the San Fernando valley. It was not until his family’s application for government housing assistance was approved  that they were able to have a permanent home in the Pacoima projects. It is here that Alex began his understanding of what social and racial justice looks like…

Alex began his LAUSD career as a Local 99-represented teaching assistant, and soon got his M.A. in Education, became a UTLA member, and began teaching both at the middle and high school levels. Alex’s relentless focus on understanding the details of all school site issues and fighting tooth-and-nail for salary, healthcare, and improving our working conditions comes from his grounded upbringing and experience. After being elected chapter chair, Alex worked hard to build a strong chapter at Madison Middle School, and soon got involved in UTLA rank-and-file organizing in the protests against privatizer mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and privatizer superintendent John Deasy and his iPads scandal. \

Alex was elected to the UTLA Board of Directors for Valley East in 2014, continued deeply engaging school sites and educator issues, and was elected UTLA Treasurer in 2017. Alex was a fundamental, leading part of the transformation of UTLA over this period of years, and beyond, to make our union one of the most respected, powerful unions in the country. He played critical city-wide leadership roles and street organizing roles in the historic 2019 strike and 2023 solidarity strike. In these transformative years, and beyond, Alex’s role as Treasurer was essential. He led negotiations and protected our healthcare through several bargaining cycles. Through collaborative processes, he developed and secured strong and strategic UTLA budgets, including massive investments in organizing, school site representation around working conditions issues, parent/youth/community coalition-building, and paid media. 

He was Treasurer through two massive, winning strikes, ensuring UTLA had the resources to win the strikes. Alex was Treasurer during the COVID pandemic, taking the lead in making sure the organization and its finances kept functioning during a world-wide shutdown, and helping to re-allocate funding to where it was needed in an unprecedented time. He was Treasurer during the Janus Supreme Court attack on unions, an attack Trump supported, and he led a collaborative process to ensure that UTLA maintained its membership and its treasury. Alex built up our finances, including the crisis and building funds. Through his role in contract negotiations with LAUSD, he helped to ensure work and pay for substitute educators before, during, and after COVID. Alex was the lead on internal UTLA negotiations with UTLA staff, ensuring continuity among one of the best staffs in the international labor movement.

In 2023, Alex was elected UTLA Secondary Vice President. He has continued a relentless schedule of school site meetings and meetings with school site leaders to remain grounded in the day-to-day working conditions needs of educators. In this role, Alex has continued to lead bargaining on healthcare, winning again in protecting this essential piece of our lives. He has been critical to pushing back on Carvalho on a variety of secondary issues, and provided key leadership on UTLA’s win on the instructional calendar and on prep days. Alex was a key leader in winning block schedule funding. In addition, Alex has played a critical role in envisioning UTLA’s place in the national movement to take on authoritarianism, ICE raids, and right-wing attacks on unions, Black people, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ communities. He is a part of ongoing national cross-labor and cross-community efforts to build towards coordinated national action every year on No Kings, Labor Day, May Day, and other days, as we resist, and as we build towards throwing a pro-active working class punch on May Day 2028. Alex is not just ready to lead — he’s already doing it.