My name is Dr. Khalid Mahmood and I teach chemistry at Merritt College. I am excited to be considered for Merritt College PFT Co-Chair and would be honored by your vote for the reasons I outline below.
In the past few years, I have been part of the two biggest public sector organizing drives in the country, both of which took place at the University of California system. During my PhD studies at UC Berkeley, I was an active member of Student Researchers United, the campaign to organize 17,000 graduate student researchers at UC. I organized hundreds of coworkers in the leadup to and during our historic six-week strike in 2022, which culminated in a contract with 55–80% raises across 3 years.
For the remainder of my PhD, I was an active member of UAW 4811, where I helped sign up coworkers as dues-paying members, enforce our contract, and take part in political action. In 2024, I mobilized my coworkers to pass a rent control measure in Berkeley that gives tenants the right to collectively bargain with their landlord by forming tenant unions (Measure BB). We knocked on over 7,000 doors citywide, passing the measure with 56% of the vote.
I went on to work full-time as an organizer for UAW 4811 (covering UC Davis), where I was part of a campaign to organize career professional staff at UC. This effort included the largest union election of 2025, when a majority of 7,000 Research & Public Service Professionals voted overwhelmingly to form their union. As part of this campaign, these career staff ratified a contract in March 2026 that included 27.8% raises over 4 years, strong protections against bullying and harassment, and a clear process to avoid arbitrary return to office mandates. In my role, I built a campus-level organizing committee, identified and developed leaders, and helped provide workers the tools to organize a strong, fighting union. I want to apply these same lessons at the Peralta Colleges, because I know that good working conditions make for good learning conditions for the students we all care so deeply about.
These wins at the UC were only possible because a majority of workers took action. At Merritt College, I hope to help take the same approach by building toward majority union participation. I’m running for Campus Co-Chair on the following platform points:
- Grow Participation through 1:1 Organizing: Merritt College has the lowest membership of any of the Peralta Colleges. When membership is low, management is empowered to make any decision they want. The only way to ensure faculty are taken seriously is by pooling our resources and power through paying dues and participating in our union. We need to grow membership through having 1:1 conversations so that all workers feel empowered to participate in their union.
- Build a Contract Action Team to Win Strong Contracts: The only way for faculty to win strong contracts and be insulated from the impacts of the Laney/Merritt merger is for us to stand together. To do that, we need a Contract Action Team (CAT) structure, where folks on the CAT are responsible for keeping 10 of their coworkers informed about bargaining. Through this structure, we can grow membership and mobilize rapidly to put necessary pressure on management.
- Win at the Ballot Box: We are lucky in the fact that we can choose our boss, in that the Peralta Community College Board is an elected position. As public employees, any gains at the bargaining table can be augmented, or undercut, by people in government. I want to make sure that all levels of government work for faculty by electing pro-labor champions. To do so, I want to utilize the Contract Action Team structure to increase the number of members who contribute to our union’s political fund, so that we can have the collective resources to elect representatives favorable to us as workers, and turn people out to elect Sandra Weese to the Peralta Community College Board.
I am excited to continue to build union power at Merritt College, throughout PFT and across the region. Let’s build a union and a workplace that works for all of us.