Outten & Golden: Empowering Employees in the Workplace

About Our Bloggers

Morra Aarons-Mele – Matthew Bainer – Dean Baker – F. Paul Bland, Jr. – Jeff Blum – Kim Bobo – Paula Brantner – Barry Butler – Natasha Chart – Michelle Chen – Tula Connell – Katie Corrigan – Philip Dine – Frank Dobbin – Phil Duran – Julia Eisman – Mike Elk – Cynthia Estlund – Chai R. Feldblum – Kim Fellner – Charlotte Fishman – Melvina Ford – Richard B. Freeman – Hannah Goitein – Bruce Goldstein – Jason Gooljar – Steven Greenhouse – Mike Hall – Mark Harbeke – Kari Henley – Maria Hinojosa – James P Hoffa – Tom Jackson – Dave Johnson – David Kusnet – Anne Ladky – Art Levine – Kari Lydersen – Dr. David Madland – Lewis Maltby – Cyrus Mehri – Linda Meric – Seth D. Michaels – Ron Moore – Dan Morris – Scott A. Moss – Jen Nedeau – Richard Negri – Nathan Newman – Myron Quon – Richard Renner – Jason Rosenbaum – Paul Rosenberg – Bob Rosner – Robin Runge – Eric Schnapper – Bryan Schwartz – Paul Secunda – Ellen Simon – Janaki Spickard-Keeler – Diane Stafford – Jonathan Tasini – Alex Thurston – Eileen Toback – Paul H. Tobias – Amy Traub – Ilona Turner – Karla Walter – Lauren Weiner – Dr. Jillian T. Weiss – Kimberly West-Faulcon – Michael Whitney – David Yamada – Tina Yang – Jill Miller Zimon

left Morra Aarons-Mele specializes in work redesign and management training for the flexible workplace. Before focusing on organizational change, Morra worked for ten years on online campaigns for politics, advocacy groups, and corporations. Through her work as an Internet strategy consultant, she became committed to helping employers and employees create and manage programs that increase flexibility and self-directed work. Morra returned to graduate school and internships to learn this new field. Morra writes weekly columns for BlogHer.com, the Huffington Post, and guardian.co.uk. She is also a frequent media commentator for CNN. Morra has a degree in Political Science from Brown University and a Master’s from the Harvard Kennedy School. Morra is active in local politics, and represented Washington, DC’s ANC for Ward 2B. She is married to Nicco Mele and lives near Boston.
Matthew Bainer, Esq. is an experienced and successful advocate of employees’ rights and has successfully represented tens of thousands of employees, both in California and throughout the nation. Mr. Bainer, a well-respected practitioner in his field, has written for both legal periodicals and academic law reviews. For more information about Mr. Bainer and his firm, please visit the Scott Cole & Associates, APC website at www.scalaw.com.
Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He is frequently cited in economics reporting in major media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CNBC, and National Public Radio. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian Unlimited (UK), and his blog, Beat the Press, features commentary on economic reporting. His analyses have appeared in many major publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the London Financial Times, and the New York Daily News. He received his Ph.D in economics from the University of Michigan.
F. Paul Bland, Jr. is a Staff Attorney for Public Justice (formerly Trial Lawyers for Public Justice), where he handles precedent-setting complex civil litigation. He has argued or co-argued and won more than twenty reported decisions from federal and state courts across the nation, including cases in four federal Circuit Courts of Appeal and six state high courts. He was named the “Vern Countryman” Award winner in 2006 by the National Consumer Law Center, which “honors the accomplishments of an exceptional consumer attorney who, through the practice of consumer law, has contributed significantly to the well being of vulnerable consumers.” He is a co-author of a book entitled Consumer Arbitration Agreements: Enforceability and Other Issues, and numerous articles. For three years, he was a co-chair of the National Association of Consumer Advocates. He also has won the San Francisco Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2002 and Maryland Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2001. Prior to coming to Public Justice, he was a plaintiffs’ class action and libel defense attorney in Baltimore. In the late 1980s, he was Chief Nominations Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, and Georgetown University in 1983.
Jeff Blum has extensive experience in grassroots organizing. He founded and directed Pennsylvania Citizen Action, where he helped lead successful campaigns to reform the state’s public utility law, create a toxics right to know law and expand access to generic drugs for senior citizens. He has also worked for the Peoples’ Coalition for Peace and Justice, Massachusetts Fair Share, People for the American Way (where he co-coordinated the campaign to establish AmeriCorps) and was Transportation Policy Director for Citizen Action. Blum also served as President of Maryland Citizen Action, founder and member of the Advisory Board of the Jewish Fund for Justice and as a member of the board of Citizens for Tax Justice. He is on the executive committee of America Votes and is an advisor to Progress Now. In Pennsylvania, he ran for state Senate in 1990 and was the Northeast Pennsylvania Regional Director of the Clinton/Gore Campaign in 1992. He has a BSN from Boston University and attended the University of Chicago and the University of Warwick, England. He and his wife, Ellen Cassedy, reside in Takoma Park, Maryland, and have two children.
Paula Brantner is Executive Director of Workplace Fairness, after serving as its Program Director from 2003 to 2007, writing legal content for the Webby-nominated site www.workplacefairness.org. Most recently, Paula was the Program Director for Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, and the Working America Education Fund. From 1997-2001, she was the senior staff attorney at the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), heading NELA’s amicus, legislative/policy, and judicial nominations programs. An employment lawyer for over 16 years, Brantner has degrees from UC-Hastings College of the Law and Michigan State University’s James Madison College.
Kim Bobo , Founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice writes the “Dispatches from the Workplace” column for the online magazine Religion Dispatches. She is the author of Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working Americans Are Not Getting Paid; And What We Can Do About It (forthcoming in December from the New Press) and the co-author of Organizing for Social Change, the best-selling manual on progressive activism in the U.S.
Barry Butler has been active in progressive politics and social justice since 1998. He is a native of Virginia from the Southside Hampton Roads area of Chesapeake. He is a graduate of North Carolina Central University with a degree in Political Science and is a part-time Graduate Student at Duke University. Barry is a trained political and community organizer, currently involved in blogging and Strategic Consulting projects. He and his family reside in Campbell County, just south of Lynchburg, VA.
Paula Brantner is Executive Director of Workplace Fairness, after serving as its Program Director from 2003 to 2007, writing legal content for the Webby-nominated site www.workplacefairness.org. Most recently, Paula was the Program Director for Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, and the Working America Education Fund. From 1997-2001, she was the senior staff attorney at the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), heading NELA’s amicus, legislative/policy, and judicial nominations programs. An employment lawyer for over 16 years, Brantner has degrees from UC-Hastings College of the Law and Michigan State University’s James Madison College.
Michelle Chen’s work has appeared in Extra!, Legal Affairs, City Limits and Alternet, along with her self-published zine, cain. She also blogs at Racewire.org
Tula Connell got her first union card while she worked her way through college as a banquet bartender for the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee they were represented by a hotel and restaurant local union (the names of the national unions were different then than they are now). With a background in journalism (covering bull roping in Texas and school boards in Virginia) she started working in the labor movement in 1991. Beginning as a writer for SEIU (and OPEIU member), she now blogs under the title of AFL-CIO managing editor.
Katie Corrigan is the Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010 where she, along with Chai Feldblum, is responsible for overseeing the strategy, legislative lawyering, policy research, media, and constituent outreach components of the effort.
Philip Dine, a Washington-based journalist, is one of the few remaining labor reporters and his labor coverage has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His book,”State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence” (2008, foreword by Richard Gephardt) has been called “one of the best books in years on the labor movement” (AFL-CIO); “inspiring” (Sen. Edward Kennedy); “a great book” (Bill Clinton); and “a playbook for a comeback for organized labor” (Boston Globe).The book outlines why labor is as relevant as ever, and looks at how labor can revitalize itself so it can meet the daily challenges faced by working and middle-class Americans. Dine is an adjunct professor of labor relations at George Washington University, a periodic labor columnist for The Washington Times, and a frequent speaker on labor issues. He has appeared over the past year on CNN, Fox, CNBC, MSNBC, C-Span, XM Satellite Radio and National Public Radio, and has spoken at various union conferences, Harvard Business School, the AFL-CIO, National Labor Relations Board, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Labor College. Dine did graduate studies in industrial relations at MIT and spent two years researching labor unions and immigrant workers in France and Germany. His op-ed pieces have been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Providence Journal, Cleveland Plain Dealer and Newsday. For a decade he wrote the only weekly labor column at a metro newspaper (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). More information is available at http://www.philipdine.com and Dine can be reached at philipmdine@aol.com.
left Frank Dobbin is professor of sociology at Harvard. He has studied corporate equal opportunity and diversity programs for more than two decades. In his most recent work, with Alexandra Kalev, he is developing an evidence-based approach to diversity management, using a large sample of firms and thirty years of data to analyze the effects of popular diversity programs on workforce integration. His Inventing Equal Opportunity (Princeton University Press, 2009) traces the evolution of corporate equal opportunity and diversity programs put into place by human resources managers – programs that ultimately define discrimination in the American mind.
left Phil Duran is a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. Phil is the Staff Attorney at OutFront Minnesota, the state’s leading advocacy, direct service, and public policy agency for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) Minnesotans and their allies. His work at OutFront Minnesota focuses on legal information, referral, and education; state legislative research and analysis; state administrative agency and local government public policy; school-related issues; and direct representation in selected public-assistance and human rights matters.Additionally, Duran serves on the board of the Minnesota Lavender Bar Association, which raises GLBT issues within the legal profession in Minnesota. He also is a past member of the executive council of the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA), and served on the steering committee of the MSBA’s Diversity in the Legal Profession Task Force. He currently serves on the MSBA Diversity Committee, MSBA Task Force on the Rights of Unmarried Couples, and Minnesota Supreme Court’s Gender Fairness Implementation Committee.
Julia Eisman is the Online Advocacy Coordinator at Families USA, a national nonprofit that works to achieve quality and affordable health care for all. Julia worked to launch, and now manages, StandUpforHealthCare.org, a project of Families USA, where ordinary Americans can gain knowledge and take action around health care reform. She earned her BA from the University of Texas in Austin and her MPA from American University.
Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). Currently, he works at the Campaign for America’s Future in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he has worked as a staffer on the Obama-Biden Campaign and conducted research on worker owned cooperatives at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When Mike is not reading twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and playing horseshoes.
Cynthia Estlund is the Catherine A. Rein Professor at the NYU School of Law. Recent work chronicles the crisis of workplace governance; the decline of collective bargaining and the failings of both regulation and litigation; and charts a potential path forward. Her book Working Together: How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy (Oxford U. Press 2003) argues that the workplace is both comparatively integrated and intensely cooperative and social, and explores the implications for democratic theory and for the law of the workplace. Other writings focus on freedom of speech and procedural fairness at work; affirmative action; and the significance of property rights in labor law.
Chai R. Feldblum is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., Director of Georgetown’s Federal Legislation Clinic, and Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010.
Kim Fellner is the author of Wrestling With Starbucks: Conscience, Capital, Cappuccino (Rutgers University Press, July). She works in the labor movement.
Charlotte Fishman is a San Francisco attorney with over 20 years of experience handling plaintiff-side employment discrimination cases in private practice, government (California Department of Fair Employment and Housing), and the non-profit sector (Equal Rights Advocates). In 2005 she founded Pick Up the Pace, a legal advocacy and public policy organization dedicated to overcoming barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace. In addition to blogging for Today’s Workplace, Ms. Fishman writes frequently for a wide audience on cutting edge employment discrimination issues. Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Common Dreams, Women’s E-News, Academe, Inside Higher Ed, Women in Higher Ed, Mothers Movement Online, and Workplace Fairness, among others. She is a regular columnist on legal issues affecting women for the San Francisco and Los Angeles Daily Journal. In recent years, she has participated as amicus curiae in employment discrimination cases before the United States and California Supreme Courts, including Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Burlington Northern v. White, AT&T v. Hulteen and Yanowitz v. L’Oreal. Ms. Fishman obtained her B.A from Barnard College in 1968 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979.
left Melvina Ford is the Executive Director of the EJC (DC Employment Justice Center). Prior to joining the EJC as Director of Legal Services in 2005, Melvina was a senior associate at the law firm of Tydings & Rosenberg LLP, in Baltimore, Maryland, where she practiced in the firm’s Litigation Department with an emphasis on labor and employment law. Melvina, however, is not a newcomer to nonprofit advocacy. Before re-entering private practice, Melvina served as the Legal Projects Manager for the Women’s Law Center of Maryland, where she coordinated the Center’s litigation efforts, represented the organization before the Maryland General Assembly and wrote and updated Center publications, such as Sex Discrimination in Employment, a guide to federal and Maryland employment laws for women. Melvina graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center, and she is a member of the Maryland, Virginia, and District of Columbia bars.
Richard B. Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University. He is currently serving as Faculty Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School. He is also director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance, and visiting professor at the London School of Economics.Professor Freeman is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of Sigma Xi. He has served on five panels of the National Academy of Sciences, including the Committee on National Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists. He has published over 300 articles dealing with a wide range of research interests including the job market for scientists and engineers, the growth and decline of unions and many more. He is currently directing the NBER / Sloan Science Engineering Workforce Project (with Daniel Goroff). In addition, he has written or edited over 35 books, several of which have been translated into French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.
Hannah Goitein is currently a law student at the George Washington University School of Law and a legal intern for Workplace Fairness. Prior to law school, Hannah graduated magna cum laude from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Hannah previously worked for AT&T as a manager and as a manager for a restaurant before that. Through her management experience coupled with her legal and business education, Hannah became committed to helping Workplace Fairness address workers right issues and continues to be actively involved in improving the workplace. Hannah lives in Washington, DC.
Bruce Goldstein joined Farmworker Justice as a staff attorney in 1988, then served as Co-Executive Director starting in September 1995, and was named Executive Director in July 2005. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1977 from the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, and his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis (1980). He has worked at the National Labor Relations Board, at a legal services office in East St. Louis, Illinois, and in private law practice concentrating in labor law, personal injury and civil rights.At Farmworker Justice, Bruce has focused on litigation and advocacy on immigration issues and labor law, with a special emphasis on the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program. Bruce’s activities on “guestworker” issues have included litigation against private employers and the government, advocacy in administrative agencies and Congress, training of lawyers and paralegals, building nation-wide coalitions, advising grassroots organizations, and testifying before Congress. Bruce has also sought to address the problem of “farm labor contractors” and other labor intermediaries used by farming operations, often in an attempt to avoid responsibility for complying with labor laws.
left Jason Gooljar is a progressive liberal blogger currently employed in the progressive movement and living in the DC metro area. A native New Yorker, Jason first got involved with political and civic issues in 1998 during his senior year in high school. At the time he was an intern and learned about the workings of local government in Westchester County, NY. Since then, he has worked as a paid staffer on two state senate campaigns and one gubernatorial campaign in NY. He was also a member of the first class to be trained in online organizing by the DC-based non-profit the New Organizing Institute in the winter of 2006. Jason holds an Associates degree in Multimedia Development and Management. His future goals include going back to school to study political science or a public policy-related area. While Jason always had an interest in politics, it was witnessing the 2005 TWU Local 100 transit strike in NYC which really galvanized him to focus on labor issues. In addition to labor issues Jason’s other areas of focus when he’s blogging is corporate abuse and consumerism. You can find him online at www.jasongooljar.com.
Steven Greenhouse has been covering labor and workplace issues for The New York Times since October 1995. He joined the Times in 1983 as a business reporter, covering steel and other basic industries. He then spent two-and-a-half years as Midwestern business correspondent based in Chicago and then five years as the paper’s European economics correspondent, based in Paris. He then spent four years in Washington D.C. for the Tomes, covering economics and foreign affairs.He has a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also has a from the New York University School of Law. His first book, The Big Squeeze:Tough Times for the American Worker, was published in April by Alfred A. Knopf. For more information on the book, see his website, stevengreenhouse.com.
Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL-CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. He carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He’s also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold blood plasma, and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.
left Mark Harbeke’s role is to ensure that content on Winning Workplaces’ website is up-to-date, accurate and engaging. He also writes and edits their monthly e-newsletter, Ideas, and provides graphic design and marketing support. His experience includes serving as editorial assistant for Meredith Corporation’s Midwest Living magazine title, publications editor for Visionation, Ltd., and proofreader for the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Drake University.Winning Workplaces is a not-for-profit providing consulting, training and information to help small and midsize organizations create great workplaces. Too often, the information and resources needed to create a high-performance workplace are out of reach for all but the largest organizations. Winning Workplaces is changing that by offering employers affordable consulting, training and information.
left Kari Henley is currently President of the Board of Directors at the Women & Family Life Center. She organizes the Association of Women Business Leaders (AWBL), and runs her own training and consulting practice. Kari is an avid writer, active in her community, and an expert in group facilitation. She has worked for the past 17 years with corporate, non-profit and public audiences. Past clients include Yale Medical School resident program, Fed Ex, Hartford Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Washington Trust Co., CT Husky program, the American Cancer Society. For more information, email: karihenley@comcast.net
left Maria Hinojosa is managing editor and host of Latino USA. In addition to hosting each week’s show, Hinojosa is the senior correspondent for the Emmy Award -winning PBS newsmagazine NOW. Before joining NOW, Hinojosa was the urban affairs correspondent for CNN. Prior to joining CNN, Hinojosa spent six years as a New York-based correspondent for NPR.
left James P. Hoffa grew up on picket lines and in union meetings. He is the only son of James R. Hoffa, former General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On his 18th birthday, Hoffa received his own union card and was sworn in by his father. Prior to becoming Administrative Assistant to Michigan Joint Council 43, Hoffa was a labor lawyer in Detroit for 25 years.

Hoffa is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on Union issues. As the most visible and outspoken critic of government trade policies and anti-worker corporate agendas, Hoffa is recognized as a leader on issues that affect working people.
left Tom Jackson has authored eleven books in the field of careers and the quality of working life. He has created, developed and executed hundreds of popular programs, software, lectures, corporate initiatives, and consultancies on career transition, performance enhancement, resumes, job search, and entrepreneurial development. His own life is a testimony to self-direction and to moving with shifting values: from pilot, to consultant, to computer pioneer, from author and lecturer, and to entrepreneur. His theories are born from his own hero’s journey and his inspired work with tens of thousands.Tom’s books combined have sold well over a million copies. He has presented hundreds of workshops, lectures, and speaking engagements at conventions and colleges, from the state universities in California, up to McGill in Canada, over to William and Mary College and Duke University, out to the University of Michigan, and down to Austin, Texas. With his interviews on “Good Morning America,” “Regis & Kathie Lee,” “Nightline,” and other TV shows, he has pushed human technology to people at every level and profession. His work introducing outplacement and career counseling to hourly workers opened a new chapter in how unions serve their membersFor the last ten years, Jackson has worked in the application of breakthrough thinking applied to personal and corporate cultures. The Breakthrough MethodTM has inspired major changes in the way fresh ideas are translated into extraordinary results. This work is woven throughout the new book. Jackson has been a pioneer in the development of interactive capability and skills development software and web sites, and continues to stay close to this field. Currently Tom is studying the revolutionary shifts in the nature of careers, jobs and work itself, and the implications for workers at all levels.
left Dave Johnson is at Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and a Fellow at the Commonwealth Institute.
left David Kusnet was chief speech writer for President Clinton during the 1992 campaign and the first two years of the administration. Before that, he was a speech writer for Democratic presidential nominees Michael Dukakis (1988) and Walter Mondale (1984). From 1974 through 1984, he was on the staff of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), coordinating communications in organizing campaigns, contract negotiations, strikes, and other efforts. He was a reporter for suburban newspapers in New York and Connecticut from 1972 through 1974. Kusnet joined EPI in 1995 and is also a freelance writer and consultant to labor organizations, government agencies, and nonprofit groups. (Biography available at the Economic Policy Institute).
Anne Ladky is Executive Director of Women Employed, a 35-year-old organization whose mission is to improve women’s economic status. Women Employed is widely recognized for its groundbreaking work to ensure enforcement of affirmative action requirements, outlaw sexual harassment, and promote family-friendly policies. Today, Women Employed focuses on women in low-paying jobs; its priorities are to improve workplaces by fighting for paid sick time, fair schedules, and better pay; and expand access to and improve the quality of post-secondary education and training. Ladky was a founding member of Women Employed, joined the staff in 1977, and was named Executive Director in 1985. She is a nationally recognized expert on women’s employment issues, equal opportunity, and workforce development. For more information on Women Employed, visit www.womenemployed.org.
left Art Levine is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly who has also written for The American Prospect, Alternet, In These Times, Salon, The New Republic, The Atlantic and numerous other publications. He’s written investigative articles on unionbusting and other corporate abuses, and recently completed Cornell University’s Strategic Corporate Research summer program. He blogs regularly for Huffington Post, and co-hosts a weekly Blog Talk Radio show, “The D’Antoni and Levine Show,” every Thursday at 5:30 p.m. ET.
left Kari Lydersen, an In These Times contributing editor, is a Chicago-based journalist writing for publications including The Washington Post, the Chicago Reader and The Progressive. Her most recent book is Revolt on Goose Island.
Dr. David Madland is the Director of the American Worker Project at American Progress. He has written academic articles and books as well as op-eds and commentaries on a range of economic issues, including retirement, economic insecurity, health care, campaign finance, taxes, and public opinion. He has a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University and received his B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley. Madland’s dissertation was about the political reaction to the decline of the defined benefit retirement system.Prior to joining American Progress, Madland helped lead a range of advocacy campaigns as a consultant to labor unions and environmental organizations. Previously, he worked for Congressman George Miller (D-CA) on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce as well as the Resources Committee. He was Political Director of the environmental organization Save the Bay, Policy Director for the taxpayer watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, and Research Director for Michela Alioto for Congress.
Lewis Maltby is a nationally recognized expert and prolific writer on human rights in the workplace. Maltby is the founder and president of the Institute. As a senior private sector executive, Maltby learned that human rights and corporate efficiency are not only compatible, but mutually reinforcing. He left the corporate world in 1988 and founded the National Workplace Rights Office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2000, Maltby and his ACLU staff realized the need for an independent organization to fight for human rights on the job and created the National Workrights Institute.
Cyrus Mehri is a founding partner of the law firm Mehri & Skalet, PLLC. Mr. Mehri served as Class Counsel in the two largest race discrimination class actions in history: Roberts v. Texaco Inc. which settled in 1997 for $176 million and Ingram v. The Coca-Cola Company, which settled in 2001 for $192.5 million. Both settlements include historic programmatic relief, featuring independent Task Forces with sweeping powers to reform key human resources practices such as pay, promotions and evaluations. Trial Lawyers for Public Justice named Mr. Mehri a finalist for “Trial Lawyer of the Year” in 1997 and 2001 for his work on the Texaco and Coca-Cola matters respectively.In 2002 Mr. Mehri and Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. released the report, Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities. The report became the catalyst for the NFL’s creation of a Workplace Diversity Committee and the adoption of a comprehensive diversity program. The NFL now has a record number of African American head coaches. Mr. Mehri graduated from Cornell Law School in 1988, and clerked for the Honorable John T. Nixon, U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Tennessee. Mr. Mehri is a frequent guest on radio and TV and is guest columnist for Diversity, Inc.
left Linda Meric is Executive Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women, an inclusive multi-racial membership organization founded in 1973 to strengthen the ability of low-income women to win economic justice through grassroots organizing and policy advocacy. Under Linda’s leadership, 9to5 has won important victories on minimum wage, good jobs, work-family, anti-discrimination, pay equity, welfare, child care and other issues affecting low-income women. Linda has spent more than 30 years as a labor and community organizer. She also serves as an adjunct professor specializing in sexual harassment and other workplace issues. Linda is a member of the Governor’s Colorado Pay Equity Commission, serves in the leadership of several state and national policy coalitions, and has received several awards for her work with and on behalf of low-income women, including the “Be Bold” Award presented by the Women’s Foundation of Colorado. She was recently appointed to the National Board of Directors of the American Forum, a progressive media organization.
Seth D. Michaels is the online campaign coordinator for the AFL-CIO, focusing on the Employee Free Choice campaign. Prior to arriving at the AFL-CIO, he’s worked on online mobilization for Moveon.org, Blue State Digital and the National Jewish Democratic Council. He also spent two years touring the country as a member of the Late Night Players, a sketch comedy troupe.
Ron Moore is a freelance writer living in Silver Spring, Maryland with decades of service in the grassroots community as a local union president, union organizer, national AFL-CIO staff, and writer for the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
Dan Morris joined the staff of the Drum Major Institute in September 2008. A communications strategist with a policy, research, and editorial background, he specializes in issue-based media campaigns. His high-impact story placements have appeared in such outlets as The Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The New York Daily News. Before joining DMI, he was the head of public relations at eChalk, an organization that empowers schools with web-based technology, where he built a new communications operation focused on message development, press cultivation, thought leadership, and issue advocacy. An experienced educator, he has taught literature to junior high students in New Jersey, and philosophy to college students in New York City.
Scott A. Moss is an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School.
Jen Nedeau is the Women’s Rights blogger for Change.org, a new blogger network of progressive causes that will be launching in mid-September 2008. Jen grew up in San Francisco, but left the West Coast to attend The George Washington University, where she obtained a B.A. in Journalism. She once pursued a career in political journalism where she wrote for the Washingtonpost.com and Stateline.org, but now works in marketing. She is a member of Women in Politics and Technology and Women Who Tech, in addition to being on the DC Advisory Board for the New Leaders Council. She currently resides in Washington, DC.
Richard Negri is the founder of UnionReview.com and is the Online Manager for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Nathan Newman is a lawyer, policy analyst and longtime labor activist, having started as a union organizer twenty years ago and has since worked as a policy researcher and labor lawyer. Currently, he is Policy Director for the Progressive States Network, a nonprofit that supports state legislative campaigns for economic and social justice. Newman has a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC-Berkeley and a law degree from Yale Law School and has been published in a range of academic and popular journals, including Working USA, The American Prospect, the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, MIT’s Technology Review and he is a regular columnist for the Progressive Populist. He is also the author of the 2002 book, Net Loss: Internet Prophets, Private Profits and the Costs to Community. He can be contacted at nathan@nathannewman.org.
Myron Quon is the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, working to expand and extend the APALRC’s programs and advising regional public officials on the needs and priorities of the Asian American and broader immigrant community. Prior to joining the APALRC, Mr. Quon served as Legal Director of the Asian American Institute in Chicago and as an Adjunct Lecturer with the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University. Mr. Quon’s background includes being the Deputy Regional Director of the Western Regional Office of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Mr. Quon began his legal career in the field of direct legal services, as a staff attorney and then managing attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County in Santa Maria, California. Mr. Quon has a JD from Boston University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Richard Renner is a leading advocate for whistleblowers, with a long record of service for labor organizers and civil rights. He is a member of the Executive Board of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) and a former Co-Chair of NELA’s Whistleblower Committee.                Prior to joining Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto in 2008, Mr. Renner worked for 27 years as a lawyer in Ohio. Mr. Renner advocated for consumers, tenants, the unemployed, and victims of domestic violence as a legal services attorney. In 1995, he joined with Alfred Tate to form the Dover, Ohio law office of Tate & Renner. After Mr. Tate died later that year, Mr. Renner began representing environmental whistleblowers, successfully trying or settling many cases.As an Adjunct Faculty at Kent State University, Tuscarawas Branch, Mr. Renner taught Mathematics and Environmental Law from 1998 to 2000.
Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.
left Paul Rosenberg is progressive activist and journalist who is a frontpage blogger for OpenLeft.org and Senior Editor for Random Lengths News, an alternative bi-weekly in the Los Angeles Harbor Area, where he specializes in labor, community and environmental justice issues. From his anti-war and civil rights activism as a teenager in the 1960s, through his involvement in food co-ops in the 1970s, to his Central American solidarity work, media and renters’ rights activism in the 1980s, and beyond, he has focused his energy primarily on issue activism, with increasing attention to media from the mid-1980s on. He began working as a freelance journalist with a primary focus on op-eds and book reviews in 1994, and joined Random Lengths News in 2002. He’s been published in the Progressive magazine, Publishers Weekly, the LA Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Dallas Morning News.
left Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. His web site, workplace911.com, contains a comprehensive archive of strategies for surviving today’s workplace. He is a fan of Workplace Fairness and can be reached via bob@workplace911.com.
left Robin Runge, Esq. is the Director of the Commission on Domestic Violence at the American Bar Association, where she manages all aspects of Commission programming with the mission of improving access to justice for domestic violence victims by mobilizing the legal profession, including: fundraising, budget management, staff recruitment and management, program development and policy development. She speaks nationally, provides trainings, and writes articles on various aspects of domestic violence and the legal response to domestic violence including the employment rights of domestic violence victims. Robin has been a domestic violence victim advocate for sixteen years and practiced employment law for five years with a focus on women’s rights in employment, specifically the Family and Medical Leave Act, Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act and employment protections for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Robin is a nationally-recognized expert on the employment rights of victims and speaks and provides trainings regularly on these issues. She has co-authored several articles on employment law and domestic violence, and has worked on state and federal legislation providing job-guaranteed leave from work, unemployment insurance and anti-discrimination in employment for domestic violence and sexual assault victims.Previously, Robin was Deputy Director and Coordinator of the Program on Women’s Employment Rights (POWER) at the D.C. Employment Justice Center and the coordinator of the Domestic Violence and Employment Project at the Employment Law Center, Legal Aid Society of San Francisco. Robin currently serves on the advisory board of the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence (CAEPV) and the Women’s Information Network as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the District Safe Housing Alliance (DASH). She was also appointed to the Washington, DC Mayor’s Commission on Women in 2006. Robin is currently an Associate Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School teaching Public Interest Lawyering and an Adjunct Professor at The American University Washington College of Law where she teaches Domestic Violence Law.Robin is a member of the California Bar and District of Columbia Bar. She graduated from The George Washington University Law School where she received the West Publishing Award for Clinical Achievement in Family Law and the Baer Award for Individual Excellence. She received her B.A. in History and French, cum laude, from Wellesley College. Robin is from Collinsville, Illinois, outside of St. Louis, Missouri.
Eric Schnapper is a professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law, teaching Civil Rights, Civil Procedure and Employment Discrimination.  He served for twenty-five years as an assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., specializing in appellate litigation and legislative activities.                Most recently, Professor Schnapper won three U.S. Supreme Court cases, including two high-profile employment discrimination cases, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway v. White (June 22, 2006) and Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. (Feb. 21, 2006). In addition, he has handled more than seventy Supreme Court cases, including Kolstad v. ADA (1999), Bogan v. Scott-Harris (1998), Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Oil (1998), Faragher v. Boca Raton (1998), and Burlington Industries v. Ellerth (1998).
Bryan Schwartz is an Oakland, CA-based attorney specializing in civil rights and employment law.
left Paul Secunda joined the Marquette University Law School as an associate professor of law in the summer of 2008. He teaches employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, employment law, civil procedure, and seminars in special education law, global issues in employee benefits, and public employment law. Professor Secunda is the author of nearly three dozen books, treatises, articles, and shorter writings. He is also the author, along with Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch, of the treatise, Understanding Employment Law, along with Sam Estreicher and Rosalind Connor, of the case book, Global Issues in Employee Benefits Law, and of the Teacher’s Manual to the 14th Edition of the Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin Labor Law casebook.Professor Secunda is a frequent commentator on labor and employment law issues in the national media and has written numerous columns and op-eds for the National Law Journal and Legal Times. He co-edits with Rick Bales and Jeffrey Hirsch the Workplace Prof Blog, recently named one of the top law professor blogs in the country, which is part of the Law Professors Blog Network.
Ellen Simon is recognized as one of the first and foremost employment and civil rights lawyers in the United States. With more than $50* million in verdicts and settlements and over 30 years of experience, Ellen has been listed in Best Lawyers in America and in the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s leading litigators. She has been lauded for her work on landmark cases that established employment law in both state and federal court. Ellen also possesses a wealth of knowledge as a legal analyst discussing high-profile civil cases, employment discrimination and women’s issues. Ms. Simon has been quoted often in local and national news media and is a regular guest on television and radio, including appearances on Court TV. She is the author of the Employee Rights Post, a legal blog devoted to employee and civil rights.*prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome
Janaki Spickard-Keeler works as a Media Outreach Specialist at Massey Media, a progressive communications strategy firm in DC. As a writer and researcher, Janaki crafts prose that speaks to journalists and editors and places her clients’ stories in the press. Janaki’s weekly writing on the world of press relations and what the media covers appears on the Massey Media blog, Own the Press.
left Diane Stafford is the workplace and careers columnist at The Kansas City Star. A veteran journalist, she has held several reporting and editing positions at The Star on both the business and metropolitan desks. Currently, she writes columns that appear in The Star on Thursdays and Sundays as well as other business and economic news articles throughout the week, accessible at www.kansascity.com. Her daily “Workspace” blog also is available at www.workspacekc.typepad.com. She is the author of “Your Job: Getting It, Keeping It, Improving It, Changing It,” a career advice book. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communications from Stanford University.
left Jonathan Tasini is the executive director of Labor Research Association. Tasini ran for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York. For the past 25 years, Jonathan has been a union leader and organizer, a social activist, and a commentator and writer on work, labor and the economy. From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (United Auto Workers Local 1981).He was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case that took on the corporate media’s assault on the rights of thousands of freelance authors.
left Alex Thurston is a research intern for Healthcare for America Now.
left Eileen Toback is a political strategist and labor relations expert. To read more of Eileen’s commentary on labor issues check out unionmaiden.wordpress.com. If you have a question for Eileen, contact her via eileentoback@gmail.com.
Paul H. Tobias is senior partner in the firm of Tobias, Kraus & Torchia in Cincinnati, Ohio where he now specializes exclusively in the rights of individual employees. He has specialized in labor and employment law for 50 years. He is the author of 15 published articles and three book chapters in the field of labor and employment law; has taught a labor law seminar at the University of Cincinnati (1975-1977); and has made over 150 presentations to Bar Associations and other groups concerning employee rights.Tobias is the founder of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA: Advocates for Employee Rights) and served as its first Executive Director, Chairman and Editor of the newsletter “The Employee Advocate.” He is the Co-Founder and former Chair and Executive Director of the National Employee Rights Institute (NERI, now Workplace Fairness). He is the author of a three volume work: “Litigating Wrongful Discharge Claims” (Callaghan/West 1987) and co-author of “Job Rights and Survival Strategies – A Handbook for Terminated Employees” (NERI 1997). He has recently been the leader of groups of lawyers studying employment and labor law procedures and issues on five trips abroad to other countries. Tobias is on the Board of Governors of the National College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and is founder of the Ohio Chapter of the College. He is a founder of the Senior Lawyers Division of the Cincinnati Bar Association. Tobias is a graduate of Harvard College (AB 1951) and Harvard Law School (LLB 1958).
Amy Traub is the Director of Research at the Drum Major Institute. A native of the Cleveland area, Amy is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago. She received a graduate fellowship to study political science at Columbia University, where she earned her Masters degree in 2001 and completed coursework towards a Ph.D. Her studies focused on comparative political economy, political theory, and social movements. Funded by a field research grant from the Tinker Foundation, Amy conducted original research in Mexico City, exploring the development of the Mexican student movement. Before coming to the Drum Major Institute, Amy headed the research department of a major New York City labor union, where her efforts contributed to the resolution of strikes and successful union organizing campaigns by hundreds of working New Yorkers. She has also been active on the local political scene working with progressive elected officials. Amy resides in Manhattan Valley with her husband.
Ilona Turner is a staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. Prior to law school, she was the lobbyist for Equality California, the state’s leading LGBT political organization, where she helped win the passage of groundbreaking legislation that significantly expanded the rights of domestic partners under California law and prohibited discrimination based on gender identity and expression in employment and housing. She received her J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Karla Walter is a Policy Analyst with the American Worker Project at American Progress. Karla focuses primarily on the improving the economic security of American workers by increasing workers’ wages and benefits, promoting workplace protections, and advancing workers’ rights at work. Prior to joining American Progress, Karla was a Research Analyst at Good Jobs First, providing support to officials, policy research organizations, and grassroots advocacy groups striving to make state and local economic development subsidies more accountable and effective. Karla earned a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Lauren Weiner is the Deputy Communications Director for Americans United for Change, a progressive advocacy group. Prior to that she was a TV producer for a regional cable network and worked in production for ABC News. She has done political research for numerous candidates on the national and state level, including the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign. She has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
left Dr. Jillian T. Weiss is Associate Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and has consulted with many organizations on issues of transgender workplace diversity, including Boeing, Harvard and New York City. She may be reached at jweiss@ramapo.edu
left Kimberly West-Faulcon is a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. Her most recent research on the legal implications of the psychometric properties of standardized tests, “The River Runs Dry: When Title VI Trumps State Anti-Affirmative Action Laws,” appears in the current volume of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
Michael Whitney is an online organizer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Michael manages the online campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act as part of SEIU’s Change that Works program. He got his start in online politics on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign as one of the co-founders of Generation Dean, a web-based youth outreach organization. Michael is a contributor to techPresident.com, the Huffington Post, and his overly active Twitter feed.
left David Yamada is the Founder of New Workplace Institute and a Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. He is an internationally recognized authority on workplace bullying and psychologically abusive work environments, having written leading analyses of workplace bullying and the law and authored the Healthy Workplace Bill, model anti-bullying legislation that has been the basis of bills introduced in over a dozen state legislatures since 2003. For more about David’s background, see his bio at: http://law.suffolk.edu/faculty/directories/faculty.cfm?InstructorID=59.
is a Summer Intern for Workplace Fairness, where she helps draft legal content relating to health and safety, health care, and employment benefits. She is currently a 2L at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.
Jill Miller Zimon is an award-winning freelance writer, blogger and political commentator. Her election coverage appeared on Newsweek’s The Ruckus and she has provided on-air political analysis for Cleveland public radio (WCPN) and television (WVIZ), CNN, BBC and other broadcast outlets. You can listen to or watch selections of her appearances here. Zimon started her blog, Writes Like She Talks, in 2005. In Fall 2007, she joined the Plain Dealer/cleveland.com online venture, Wide Open. It was the first paid collaboration between a traditional newspaper and independent political bloggers in the country. This past August, she was named to WE Magazine’s list of 101 Women Bloggers to Watch This Fall. Zimon’s other blogging work includes being a Contributing Editor for BlogHer.com’s Election 2008 coverage and co-editing the Carnival of Ohio Blogs since 2007 on a voluntary basis. She was a board member of the Society of Professional Journalists Cleveland Pro Chapter in 2007 and presented at SPJ’s national conference in 2005.
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