Austin Pryfogle

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT AUSTIN PRYFOGLE

I’ve been a community/labor/political organizer for the past decade. Most recently I worked with a team of just 13 organizers to run the strike that kicked off this year of strikes, organizing a workforce of classified education workers at LAUSD to do the largest classified education workers strike in history. At SEIU99, I supported field strategy for the Stop the Recall campaign for Gavin Newsome, the election campaign for Kelly Gonez for School Board, and numerous campaigns. What allowed me the ability to move so many workers to action was by creating systems of care, lifting up food pantries and programs, mutual aid networks for childcare and support during COVID, education on how community care strengthens us. During Covid I helped start the El Pueblo local of the Democratic Socialists of Los Angeles’ StreetWatch Project. Every Sunday we tabled in an area that I actually inhabited when I was homeless on and off for the bulk of my twenties. There we were able to provide hot meals, a closet of clothes and shoes, tents and tarps, harm reduction tools, and connect people with rapid rehousing, hotel rooms during times of crisis, and more. From working with the National Lawyers Guild as a legal observer in the wake of George Floyd and on the fateful day Roe v. Wade was overturned to supporting the election of hundreds of Democratic socialists to neighborhood councils all over LA, to putting together voter registration campaigns with CalPIRG, people-centered social justice work has been at the core of my being. People ask me how or why I engage in this work. It’s because I believe in the power we hold as workers, as voters, as people. And in my heart of hearts I know that when we join together there is nothing we can’t accomplish.