Miguel was raised in a “mixed” family: his mother was a teacher in a non-unionized private school, whereas his father spent his entire career as a member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Miguel’s uncles were also electricians and members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). Miguel saw from an early age that his father and uncles had access to resources, protections, and advancement in a way that his mother did not — even though she had more educational and professional credentials. Miguel’s mother eventually chose to leave her profession due to those types of structural factors.

More recently, Miguel saw viscerally the value of unions when his partner, Luis, was terminated along with all of his colleagues from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This was an utter calamity in Luis’s and his peers’ lives. Amid the chaos of shuttering an entire government agency (with dubious legality), it was only the unions that had the capacity to fight for their members’ rights, both directly with the government and through the various lawsuits they filed to enforce the protections owed to public-sector employees.

Unions are increasingly relevant in our society once again precisely because workers are being disadvantaged in industries where corporate acquisitions and consolidations are trending toward monopolies/monopsonies and diminished competition in the labor market. It is appropriate for elected officials to collaborate with unions to set high labor standards that create upward pressure throughout the economy, and to exercise oversight functions robustly to ensure that labor agreements are respected and that workers, both union and otherwise, are justly compensated and protected.

As a Commissioner, Miguel has pushed the envelope of what ANCs can do by conducting public oversight in the name of worker protections. A structural collapse at a construction site occurred in his commission area in late 2024, which resulted in the death of a worker. As the Chairman of ANC 1B, Miguel has worked consistently since then to accompany investigations by the Department of Buildings (DOB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). He invited representatives of DOB to multiple meetings to discuss their preliminary findings, their published after-action report, and the ongoing policy changes resulting from the accident. The ANC oversight has resulted in substantive changes inside DOB and has raised the incident to the attention of the Council. Miguel is intent on honoring the memory of the victim, Edgar, and his family by seeking justice as well as reforms that will prevent similar tragedies in the future. This is not a typical activity for an ANC, but Miguel has encouraged and coordinated this important undertaking because he did not have faith that DOB’s internal process would yield sufficient accountability. This is the tenacity that Miguel will bring to the Council and its all-important oversight functions.

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