DeLane Adams has served as the IAM Assistant Communications Director since March 2021. Adams brings more than two decades of experience in turning rapid response into worker power as a labor communicator and strategist.
Adams was initiated into the IAM as a communications representative in April 2017. He previously served as the National AFL-CIO field communications coordinator for the 13-state Southern Region, where he built rapid response capacity across some of the country’s most contested labor battlegrounds and right-to-work states. Before that, he served as Georgia AFL-CIO’s communications director and legislative director, coordinating earned media, legislative pressure campaigns, and on-the-ground mobilization. He also previously served as legislative director for Citizen Action/Illinois in Chicago, where he worked alongside organizers and elected officials in the streets and the statehouse.
An organizing-first approach to communications has defined his role in the labor movement. Whether responding to a plant closure or corporate outsourcing announcement, a legislative threat, or an employer anti-union campaign, Adams operates at the intersection of communications, rapid response, and worker activation.
Reflecting the IAM’s longstanding solidarity with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), Adams served as a labor representative on the NFLPA Alan Page Community Award selection panel, helping select five finalists for the NFLPA’s highest community honor.
Adams’ writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Hill, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among other outlets. He is a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and previously served on the executive council of the International Labor Communications Association.
Adams received his bachelor’s degree from Florida A&M University and graduated from Bartlett High School in Anchorage, Alaska.
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