DiAndre Jackson
35 years old
Screw Machine Operator,
Member of Master Lock union
Started at Master Lock in 2007, passed test to get into skilled trade position
Raised on the north side of Milwaukee, DiAndre is a skilled machine operator at Master Lock and a property investor who bought his first home at 18. The baby in a family of five children, he was raised by his mother in a middle-class environment and later lived with his brother, a high-ranking Milwaukee police officer. His focus in high school was vocational. He then studied a skilled trade to put himself in a position to achieve the financial self-reliance he wants. He views college as a waste of time and school, in general, as never teaching practical skills you need to be successful in life, such as managing money and establishing a credit rating. He says Black men in the U.S. face systemic racism. Despite that, his overall philosophy is “I was taught you got to get it” (h/t to rapper Scarface) and that success comes from your own efforts, not those of any job or system you’re in.
Randall J. “Randy” Bryce
Nicknamed “Iron Stache,” 55 years old
Ironworkers Local 8 member, IronPAC founder
Randy is a journeyman contractor with a speciality in ironwork. He is proud of his Polish and Mexican roots. H has run several times for political office, is a cancer survivor, a U.S. Army veteran and a member of the Ironworkers Union. He considers himself middle class, was raised on the south side of Milwaukee by his mother, who worked in a doctor’s office, and his father, who was a police officer. He’s a progressive Democrat who believes “working-class” Americans today are often one or two paychecks away from homelessness. He wants to change what isn’t working and is active in supporting protests and movements to better people’s lives.
Decorah Gordon
35 years old
Union Worker, We Work Energies
Decorah is a union worker who has overcome a lot in her life. Raised on food stamps, pregnant at 15, she is a single mother of a 20-year-old and a 10-year-old. She worked at Walmart for a while, got an associate’s degree to become a paralegal, spent a while on government assistance. Her 10-year-old son was born with a serious medical condition that required him to be fed by an automatic feeding tube. Because he needed constant care, she stopped working for the year after he was born and fell into deep debt and near poverty. She couldn’t find work as a paralegal and ended up applying for and getting a union job at We Energies 10 years ago – a month after they shut off her power forcing her to feed her son manually through his feeding tube.
Nancy Bryce
Mother of Randy Bryce, 74 years old
Worked for decades in a local medical practice
Nancy grew up as the eldest child of a carpenter who only worked seasonally. The family stood on line at a food bank during winters, making do with what was on offer. The family moved from an upper flat to a house, as opportunities came to her father. She married Richard Bryce, an army veteran and a Milwaukee police officer. Together, they built a house and raised a family, happily ensconced in the middle class. Nancy worked in a local medical practice for many years. They lived in retirement until Richard’s death in 2019. Nancy has a medical condition that requires her to take 20-plus medications, including one that costs thousands of dollars. Life is a struggle, and Nancy finds it hard to hold onto her hard-won middle-class status in today’s America.
Justin Koss
40 years old
President, Koss Manufacturing LLC
Koss, the son-in-law of Mark Honadel, is the founder and owner of a dynamic machine shop specializing in prototype to production. He has over two decades in manufacturing, with specializations in surgical equipment and aerospace technologies. He has had a hard time recruiting and retaining workers in the past and was enjoying his best business months ever when Covid-19 struck and cratered his operations.
Mike Bink
62 years old
UAW Local 469 President, works at Master Lock
Mike is a senior union representative for workers at Master Lock. He, himself, has worked at Master Lock since February 1979, when the company was still family owned. Long an advocate of workers’ rights, he saw jobs at his company and others move overseas to China and Mexico and has battled more recently to bring some of those jobs back to the U.S. Mike is also a skilled carpenter and cabinet-maker and is great working with his hands.
Annette Rice
Mother of DiAndre, 70
Retired state civil servant
Annette was born in East Chicago, Illinois and was raised by strong women. She was active from an early age in seeking women’s rights and civil rights, marching successfully with other working mothers to secure childcare support from the state government. She studied to be a secretary, but ended up working for many years as a civil servant in the state government. She taught her children the importance of understanding money and financing, and of working hard hard to make themselves better through education or their vocation.
A.J. Mondry
25 years old
A.J. graduated high school at a very young age and went on to study film and journalism at the University of Milwaukee, Wisconsin before pivoting to his passion of becoming a chef, starting as a dishwasher and cook. A self-proclaimed foodie, he has found it hard to make ends meet, despite working 100 hours a week in the hospitality sector. Using his skills, education and discipline, he has become a senior manager of restaurants, while keeping his hands in cooking. He is driven and ambitious, loves working with a team and seeking a perfect service, he knows how physically and emotionally demanding the F&B and hospitality sector can be. But as a student of history, he sees how far those who serve have fallen in today’s America, not getting out of it nearly what they put into it - and he is advocating for change.
Edwin Martinez
27 years old
Works in and around cryptocurrency
“You don’t get rich from mining the gold. You get rich from selling the shovels.” That’s a mantra Edwin lives by. The son of Mexican immigrants, he had an uncanny sense for zeitgeist and was always that kid who sold latest fashion items, resold iPhones or other things in demand among his peers. Never big into school, he eschewed college and briefly pursued a career in filmmaking, before a chance encounter with a crytpomining computer led to his studying up on bitcoin and deciding that selling all things crypto – from racks to GPUs to full mining rigs – was something he could see himself doing. Edwin has always done things his own way, expecting nothing from anyone, and pursuing a life outside a system where workers are unhappy, unhealthy and fear their bosses - existing, not really living.
Ashley (Seneff) Puglisi
32 years old, Co-Owner, Tailored Salon
Ashley and her sister, Jessica (see below), are small business owners and sisters raised in the suburbs of Milwaukee by conservative Republican parents. Their businesses, an upscale hair salon and a speciality bakery, are located a block apart in Milwaukee’s trendy and rapidly-gentrifying Walkers Point neighborhood minutes south of downtown. They both pursued training and careers in areas they were passionate about, baking and hairstyling, respectively. After working for others as employees Jessica and Ashley both were dissatisfied with their experiences and started their own small businesses. Ashley is, after 5 years, still not drawing regular income but she is proud of her growing business and the experiences it creates for both employees and clients.
Jessica Reinhardtsen
30 years old,
Owner, Greige Patisserie
Jessica had a rough start and has had to adjust her life accordingly, but admits that being forced to shut down because of COVID was a blessing in disguise. She continues to adapt her business model and feels more positive in spite of her challenges. Both sisters are much more moderate in their political views than their conservative parents, and acknowledge that’s an area they try to avoid discussion on because of how strong their parents’ beliefs are. They see their businesses as rewarding and challenging at the same time and acknowledge that the American Dream is different for everyone and that achieving it often has little to do with hard work and merit.