Get Involved
Linda Sakata
Monterey County
Eligibility Worker

December 2002
by Richard Bermack

Hardly a year gones by that Linda Sakata doesn’t received a COPE award for her political activism. Precinct walking is one of her favorite. “I like precinct walking because you are right there. You can see the expression on the person’s face and can answer any questions they have. You know if they are with you. You can’t do that over the phone.”

“Linda has the uncanny ability talk to anybody. She has that organizer’s magic,” states field staff Wren Bradley, who has walked door to door with Sakata on many campaigns and translated for her when soliciting support from Latino voters. “She can reach anyone, a vato-loco full of gang tattoos on the east side of Salinas to an upper-class bleached blond white person in an exclusive area of Monterey. She can pull them in and capture their attention. She can get them to understand workers’ issues whether they are labor people or not.”

Bradley describes her as one of the most dedicated political activists she has ever known, and coming from Bradley that is no minor compliment: “She gives so much of her own personal life, working day and night to elect labor-friendly candidates. We’ve walked together door-to-door from King City to Greenfield, Soledad to Salinas. She was there. Linda is a real foot soldier.”

As Monterey County Chapter President, Sakata helped negotiate a workload study for eligibility workers similar to the yardstick study for social workers. The study evaluated the new skills and workload under TANF reorganization, providing workload standards. She understands full well the importance of local politics. “It is especially important for county workers to be involved in the political process; when it comes to board of supervisor candidates, we are electing our boss,” Sakata states.