Tom Kertes is an experienced social movement organizer working to build strong communities for everyone.

To this end, Tom is committed to:

• advancing gender pay equity for all workers,
• developing family and child care policy that’s centred on sustaining strong communities for Canadians of all ages, and
• building bridges for immigrants – so that everyone can contribute to and become part of Canada’s shared prosperity.

He has more than fifteen years as a community organizer, including as an AIDS activist in his early twenties, a living wages and human rights advocate in Baltimore, and as an early childhood educator today.

Marriage Equality and Respect for Human Rights

Tom immigrated to Canada with his now husband Ron Braun, in part to live in a country that fully recognizes marriage equality. They were married at Toronto’s City Hall in 2009, on the weekend of their tenth anniversary and two years after immigrating to Canada together.

Having been a human rights advocate in one of North America’s poorest cities, working to secure the economic human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Tom also immigrated because of Canada’s commitment to celebrating diversity, respecting differences, building supportive and inclusive communities, and working together to achieve progress through dialogue.

Raised Roman Catholic and inspired by the Social Gospel teachings at the heart of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960′s, Tom has worked closely with diverse communities of faith for social and economic justice. He is now a member of the Anglican Church and is actively involved with the St. Paul’s parish in Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood.

Human Dignity and Shared Responsibility

Tom helped spearhead a living wage campaign that resulted in the first successful living wage victory for day labourers in the United States, achieving both direct employment and living wages through collective action.

Tom was responsible for strategic planning of the campaign, media and communications, and coordinated the Living Wages Hunger Strike, an announced by ultimately successful and therefore not launched hunger strike by 14 low-wage workers and allies.

Living Wages Victory

The homeless day labourers who cleaned Baltimore’s Camden Yards stadium launched the campaign in 2004, at a time when the cleaners were hired and fired each day as day labourers and were paid a flat rate that averaged less than $4.50 per hour.

After a three year campaign and a series of broken promises by the stadium authority and cleaning contractor, workers said “enough is enough” by setting September 1, 2007 as the deadline for a living wage victory. If this deadline were missed, a hunger strike would commence.

On eve of the worker-imposed deadline, the state’s Governor reserved course and called on the state-owned stadium to respect workers’ right to be paid a living wage. Wages nearly tripled to over $11.00 with this victory.

Child Care Equity and Family Policy

Following the living wage victory, Tom moved to Vancouver to help organize child care professionals around the vision of child care equity by advancing gender pay equity at UBC without compromising access to affordable, quality child care. He is currently an early childhood educator at the University of British Columbia, working with preschoolers at a daycare in an converted barn that’s literally at the centre of the university.

Highlights of Experience

• Ways and Means Committee Clerk (1993)
• AIDS Activist (1993-1995)
• Children’s Bookstore Owner and Preschool Teacher (1995 to 2001)
• Executive Director of a Daycare (2004)
• Living Wages Advocate (2004 to 2010)
• Instructor in Early Childhood Education at Seneca College (2008)
• Policy Advisor at Ontario’s College of Early Childhood Educators (2008 to 2009)
• Early Childhood Educator at the University of British Columbia (2010 to current)

Education and Educational Honours

• Olympic College - Two-Year Associate’s Degree, Dean’s List (2001)
• University of Washington - BA, Psychology, Zesbaugh Scholar (full-tuition research scholarship) (2003)
• University of Toronto (OISE) - Studied Human Development and Applied Psychology in the MA program
• Langara College - Diploma (Graduated with Distinction), Early Childhood Education (Infant/Toddler) (2010)

Communities Today

While it was marriage equality and respect for human rights that brought Tom to Canada, it was Vancouver’s nearby coastal islands, year-round moderate weather, mountain trails, and picture perfect skyline that brought him to British Columbia.

Tom lives in a housing co-operative in the Marpole Neighbourhood of Vancouver, BC, just a block from the Marine Drive Canada Line station.

He volunteers as a facilitator with the Liberation Learning Project – a grassroots network of child care workers seeking to transform child care in BC, around the values of unconditional respect, universal dignity, and shared responsibility in child care.

Tom is also a member of Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia (ECEBC), a professional association that has been advancing early childhood education and care in BC since 1969.

(Read Tom’s brief autobiography to learn more about his journey as a community organizer.)