The Future of Worker Voice

Sarita Gupta, Executive Director, Jobs With Justice

Sarita Gupta is the executive director of Jobs With Justice. She is a nationally recognized expert on the economic and political issues affecting working people across all industries, particularly low-wage workers. Under Sarita's direction, Jobs With Justice is leading the fight for workers' rights and an economy that benefits everyone by anchoring strategic campaigns and shaping the public discourse to build power for working people. Jobs With Justice brings together labor, community, student, and faith voices at the national and local levels to create innovative solutions to the problems workers face today. Throughout her 20-year career, Sarita has worked at the intersection of workers' rights, immigrants' rights, global justice, racial justice, and women's rights issues. Sarita also serves as co-director of Caring Across Generations, a national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working together for quality care and support and a dignified quality of life for all Americans. Sarita also serves on the boards of directors for the International Labor Rights Forum and the Institute for Policy Studies and on the Discount Foundation Board of Trustees. She is a Prime Movers Fellow as well as a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Training Program and a recipient of the National Priority Project's Democracy Champion Award and Corporate Ethics International's BENNY Award. Born in the United Kingdom and raised in Rochester, N.Y., Sarita currently lives in Silver Spring, Md., with her husband and daughter.

Ruth Milkman, Research Director, CUNY's Murphy Labor Institute, and Professor of Sociology

Ruth Milkman is a Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and Research Director of CUNY's Murphy Labor Institute. She received her B.A. from Brown University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She has written extensively about work and labor organization in the United States. She helped lead a multi-city team that produced a widely publicized study documenting the prevalence of wage theft and violations of other workplace laws in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. She also recently co-authored (with Eileen Appelbaum) a study of California's paid family leave program, focusing on its impact on employers and workers. Her recent books include "L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers And The Future Of The U.S. Labor Movement," and "New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement," co-edited with Ed Ott.

David Rolf, President, SEIU 775, and Founder and Co-Chair, The Workers Lab

David Rolf is the President of SEIU 775, the fastest growing union in the Northwest representing home care and nursing home workers in Washington state and Montana, and Founder and Co-Chair of The Workers Lab. From 1995-1999 he led the successful organization of 75,000 home care aides in Los Angeles, the largest union organizing campaign since the 1940's. He led the historic campaigns to win a $15 living wage ordinance in Seatac in 2013 and for a citywide $15 minimum wage in Seattle in 2014. Since founding SEIU 775 in 2002, he has led its growth from 1600 to 43,000 members through new organizing, helped double the pay of its low-wage members, and bargained contracts that have created health, dental, vision, mileage, PTO, and other benefits for a previously minimum-wage, invisible workforce excluded from most labor and employment law protections. He was also founder and Chair of the SEIU 775 Health Benefits Trust, which provides health benefits to tens of thousands of home care aides in Washington State and Montana. Rolf also serves as an International Vice President of the Service Employees International Union. David was born and raised in Cincinnati Ohio, graduated from Bard College, and lives in Seattle with his wife Kylie.

Cruz Salucio, Spokesperson, Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Watermelon Harvester

Cruz Salucio is farmworker and staff member at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Florida. Cruz conducts worker-to-worker education sessions and investigates complaints under the Fair Food Program, is a national spokesperson in the Campaign for Fair Food, and manages the CIW's worker-led community radio station, Radio Conciencia. The CIW is a Presidential Medal-winning worker-based human rights organization internationally recognized for its achievements in the fields of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work. Built on a foundation of farmworker community organizing starting in 1993, and reinforced with the creation of a national consumer network since 2000, CIW's work has steadily grown over more than twenty years to encompass three broad and overlapping spheres: the Fair Food Program, Anti-Slavery Campaign and the Campaign for Fair Food.

Harold Meyerson, Editor-at-Large, The American Prospect, and Columnist, The Washington Post

Harold Meyerson writes a weekly political column that appears on Thursdays in The Washington Post. Meyerson is also executive editor of The American Prospect, a liberal magazine based in Washington. A Los Angeles native, Meyerson was the executive editor of the L.A. Weekly from 1989 to 2001and hosted the weekly show "Real Politics" on radio station KCRW, the L.A. area's leading NPR affiliate, from 1991 to 1995. He is the author of "Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz?" (1995), a biography of Broadway lyricist Yip Harburg.