Jane Oates
Assistant Secretary of Labor
Employment and Training Administration

Jane Oates was nominated by President Barack Obama to join Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis' leadership team at the Department of Labor in April, 2009. Confirmed as Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training on June 19, 2009, she now leads the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) in its mission to design and deliver high-quality training and employment programs for our nation's workers. Working with States and territories, municipalities, labor management organizations, employers, educational institutions, fellow Federal agencies, and other partners, ETA strives to assist workers in gaining the skills and credentials needed to enter careers that pay family supporting wages and offer opportunities for advancement.With a nationwide reach and focus on good jobs in promising industries, ETA programs are designed to serve every American who aspires to career success. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Oates served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education and Senior Advisor to Governor Jon S. Corzine.In that position Oates worked to strengthen the connections among high school, post-secondary education and the workforce.Ms. Oates served for nearly a decade as Senior Policy Advisor for Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.She worked closely with the Senator on a variety of education, workforce and national service legislative initiatives, including the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.Ms. Oates began her career as a teacher in the Boston and Philadelphia public schools and later as a field researcher at Temple University's Center for Research in Human Development and Education.She received her BA in Education from Boston College, and an M.Ed in Reading from Arcadia University.

Josh Bivens Economic Policy Inst. & author Everybody Wins Except for Most of Us

Josh Bivens joined the Economic Policy Institute in 2002. He is the author of Everybody Wins Except for Most of Us: What Economics Teaches About Globalization and has published numerous articles in both academic and popular venues, including USA Today, The Guardian, The American Prospect, Challenge Magazine, and Worth. He is a frequent commentator on economic issues for a variety of media outlets, including NPR, CNN, CNBC, Reuters and the BBC.

Jerry Butkiewicz, Workforce Readiness Manager, Sempra Utilities

Jerry Butkiewicz has devoted the past 30years to the cause he believes fundamental to all Americans—providing a better quality of life though justice on the job. Beginning his career as a U.S. postal clerk and a member of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) in Phoenix, AZ, in 1975 Mr. Butkiewicz was elected vice-president and later president of the local. In 1980 he was elected president of the local APWU in Oceanside CA, soon after beginning work at the local post office. Mr. Butkiewicz continued to represent working families when, in 1981, the Central Labor Council of San Diego and Imperial Counties selected him as their community services liaison between organized labor and the United Way.

After a 15-year tenure of providing aid to working families with the United Way, Mr. Butkiewicz ran for office of Secretary-Treasurer of the Labor Council and was elected in 1996, winning reelection in 2000 and 2004. Jerry served as the executive officer of the Labor Council for nearly 12 years, striving to provide all Californians with a fair wage, affordable health care, and a safe working environment. While at the Labor Council, he was active on the San Diego Greater Chamber of Commerce, the United Way of San Diego, the San Diego Workforce Partnership, the Environmental Health Coalition, and the California Workforce Investment Board.

At the start of 2008, Jerry accepted a position as workforce readiness manager for Sempra Utilities. He currently lives in San Diego with his wife and children where he coaches youth softball.

Laura N. Chick Inspector General, State of California 

Shortly after President Obama signed the Federal Recovery Act, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger turned to Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick. He tapped her to be the first-in-the-nation Inspector General to oversee the more than $50 Billion in economic stimulus dollars that California is receiving.

A trained social worker, Ms. Chick received her Bachelors Degree in History from UCLA and a Masters in Social Work from USC. Her experience includes managing a family-owned retail business. Laura first entered elected office in 1993 when she defeated a 16 year incumbent for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in the West San Fernando Valley. In 2001 Ms. Chick was overwhelmingly elected City Controller, becoming the first woman to hold citywide office in Los Angeles. As Controller, she was the Chief Auditor and Chief Accountant of the City. In her nearly eight years in this office, Laura released over 170 audits and reports exposing a wide range of problems throughout city government. Her work recently won her the prestigious ProPublica Prize for Investigative Governance.

Laura is now energetically taking up the state's challenge of overseeing the massive expenditure of American Recovery funds

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Thomas Croft

Executive Director, Steel Valley Authority and Director, Heartland Institute and Author of Up from Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative

Thomas Croft is an international expert on innovative capital strategies and jobs-oriented economic revitalization strategies. He has served as Director of the Heartland Network, a working group of responsible pension investment advocates in the U.S. and Canada. He is the author of Up from Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative, published by Cosimo, Inc., and he commissioned Working Capital: The Power of Labor's Pensions (Cornell University Press, 2001). In his other day job, Croft is Executive Director of the Steel Valley Authority (SVA), a growing regional development authority in Pennsylvania.

Lisa Dodson

Professor, Brandeis University, author of The Moral Underground: How Ordinary American Subvert an Unfair Economy

Lisa Dodson is a professor of sociology at Boston College and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on poverty, work and family, and public policy. She has published numerous articles and policy papers based on collaborative research with people who are coping with economic hardship in the US. Dodson’s most recent focus is documenting the family effects of a deeply stratified economy that is undermining working families and the larger society. Currently, she is leading a study that is documenting barriers and successes of low-income mothers and children working with the Boston-based anti-poverty organization, the Crittenton Women’s Union.  

Previously, Dodson was on the faculty at Harvard University and a Policy Fellow at the Radcliffe Public Policy Center where she wrote her first book Don’t Call Us Out of Name: The Untold Lives of Women and Girls in Poor America (Beacon Press 1999). The book explored the lives of low-income mothers raising children after welfare reform. Based on  her research, Dodson has presented findings at US Congressional hearings and recently to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as in many community organizations, labor groups, and public school and health forums. In her earlier career, Dr. Dodson was the director of women’s health division for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an obstetrical nurse, and labor union organizer.  

Lisa Dodson’s new book The Moral Underground: How Ordinary American Subvert an Unfair Economy is featured in The American Prospect January 2010.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Chief Executive Officer, Green For All

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the Chief Executive Officer of Green For All. Since taking leadership in March 2009, Phaedra has led the organization to a stirring string of victories. Chief among these was assembling a civil rights coalition that successfully lobbied for two significant improvements to the House version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act: securing funding for job training, and guaranteeing broad access to clean energy jobs. These are the Act’s only provisions creating opportunity for low-income people and people of color.

Prior to joining Green For All, Phaedra was head of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council and Working Partnerships USA. The scope and scale of Phaedra’s many achievements have won her wide praise. San Jose Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful people in Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley Business Journal called her one of “40 to watch under 40.” As a woman of color, Phaedra has distinguished herself as an innovative leader in California and led the way for emerging leaders in the American progressive movement, directing campaigns to win policy victories on local, regional, and state levels. She has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and Essence, and on ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC.

An alumna of American Leadership Forum, she has served on the boards of the Progressive Technology Project, New World Foundation, the Women’s Fund of Silicon Valley, the City of San Jose General Plan Update Task Force and the Central Labor Council Advisory Committee. She serves on the board of the Leadership Council of California Forward and is Chair and Co-Founder of the Partnership for Working Families.

 

Joan Fitzgerald, Professor of Law, Policy and Society, Northeastern University, author of Emerald Cities – Urban Sustainability & Economic Development

Joan Fitzgerald is the Director of the Law, Policy and Society Program at Northeastern University. She has written for a wide number of publications, including Economic Development Quarterly and the Journal of Black Political Economy. She writes frequently for The American Prospect; her most recent contributions are  “Losing our Future” which argues If we don't develop a national industrial policy for clean-energy production, the strategies of other nations will displace American companies and jobs. Ms. Fitzgerald is the author of Economic Revitalization: Strategies and Cases for City and Suburb, examines strategies for incorporating the goals of economic justice and sustainability into traditional economic development strategies.

Ms. Fitzgerald’s new book, Emerald Cities – Urban Sustainability & Economic Development, shows how in the absence of a comprehensive national policy, cities like Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have taken the lead in addressing the interrelated environmental problems of global warming, pollution, energy dependence, and social justice.

Lorena Gonzalez, Secretary-Treasurer/CEO, San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council

In January of 2008, Lorena Gonzalez became the secretary-treasurer and CEO for the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO. The Labor Council is a coalition of 125 local unions that represent more than 189,000 working families in the region. Upon her election, Lorena became the first woman and first person of color to serve as head of the Labor Council since the organization’s inception in 1902.

The daughter of an immigrant farmworker and a nurse, Lorena learned the value of hard work and determination at an early age. After graduating from Vista High School in North San Diego County, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Stanford University, a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University and a Law Degree from UCLA.

A member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 36, Lorena worked as the Labor Council’s Political Director before being elected Secretary-Treasurer. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors for the California League of Conservation Voters, the Center for Policy Initiatives, the Environmental Health Coalition and the United Way of San Diego. Lorena also serves on the Executive Council of the state California Labor Federation as a Vice President.

 

Kate Gordon, VP for Energy Policy, Center for American Progress 

Kate Gordon is the Vice President for Energy Policy at American Progress. Most recently, Kate was the co-director of the national Apollo Alliance, where she still serves as senior policy advisor. Kate was one of Apollo’s first staffers, joining in 2004 as the director of the Apollo Strategy Center, the policy arm of Apollo formerly housed at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, or COWS.

Kate is nationally recognized for her work on the intersection of clean energy and economic development policy. She also has a long history of working on economic justice and labor issues. At COWS, along with her energy work, Kate focused on corporate tax policy, progressive federalism, and rural economic development. Prior to that, she served as an employment and consumer rights litigator at Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Oakland, CA. She is a primary or co-author on most of Apollo’s major reports, including “The New Apollo Program,” “Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities,” “Greener Pathways,” and the “New Energy” series. She is also the author of several published articles on contract fairness, federal preemption, mandatory arbitration litigation, and regional economic development.

Kate earned a J.D. and master's degree in city planning from the University of California-Berkeley and and undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. She is a member of the the State Bar of California.

Amy Hanauer, Executive Director, Policy Matters Ohio

Amy Hanauer is the founding executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, a non-profit, non-partisan policy research institute dedicated to examining issues that matter to working families in Ohio. In 2008, the Nation magazine named Policy Matters the most valuable state or regional organization in the country. Since the group started in January of 2000, Policy Matters has produced more than 160 reports, generated more than 1,600 media stories, and begun to change the economic debate in Ohio.

Amy has a Master's of Public Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA from Cornell University. She has previously done research and policy work in Wisconsin, Colorado and Washington D.C. For Policy Matters, in addition to running the organization, Amy does research on work, wages, tax policy, energy policy and other issues. Amy is on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the national think tank Dēmos and on the advisory committee to the national Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN). She serves on the Ohio legislative Compact on Ohio's Cities and was invited earlier this year to be part of a panel discussion with Vice President Joe Biden on the future of manufacturing.

Robert Haynes, Secretary-Treasurer, Massachusetts AFL-CIO

Robert J. Haynes has served the 400,000 union members of the Commonwealth as an officer in the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. His career in the labor movement began nearly forty years ago in 1968 as an 18-year old when he went to work as an ironworker. Haynes rose through the ranks of Ironworkers Local 7, serving as an apprentice, journeyman, foreman, steward, and was ultimately elected financial secretary-treasurer of Local 7 in 1979. His career as a State Federation leader began when he was elected as the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer in 1987. Haynes served in that post until his election as President of the State Federation in 1998. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO has flourished under his leadership as he has fought time and time again to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of life of the working families in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

 

 

 

Robert Kuttner Co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect

Author A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama's Promise, Wall Street's Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future.

Mr. Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week, and continues to write columns in the Boston Globe.

Mr. Kuttner’s best-known earlier book is Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997). The book received a page one review in the New York Times Book Review. Bob's other previous books on economics and politics include; The End of Laissez-Faire (1991); The Life of the Party (1987); The Economic Illusion (1984); and Revolt of the Haves (1980). His magazine writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Dissent, Columbia Journalism Review, and Harvard Business Review. He has contributed major articles to The New England Journal of Medicine as a national policy correspondent.

The Squandering of America, exploring the political roots of America's narrowing prosperity and the systemic risks facing the U.S. economy, is Bob's seventh book. The book was recently honored with the Sidney Hillman Journalism Award. Bob has just begun work on a new book on trade, equality, efficiency, and the challenge of regulating global capitalism.

 

Greg LeRoy, Executive Director, Good Jobs First

Dubbed "the leading national watchdog of state and local economic development subsidies" and "God's witness to corporate welfare," Greg founded Good Jobs First in 1998. He has been writing, training, and consulting on development issues for state and local governments, labor-management committees, unions, community groups, tax and budget watchdogs, environmentalists, smart growth advocates, and associations of public officials for more than 25 years. A nationally prominent speaker and frequently quoted news media source, he is the author of The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005) and No More Candy Store: States and Cities Making Job Subsidies Accountable (1994).

 

Andy Levin

Andy Levin joined the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth as deputy director in February of 2007. He oversees operations of Workforce Programs, Commission for the Blind, Michigan Rehabilitation Services, Career Education, Commission on Disability Concerns, Labor Market Information & Strategic Initiatives, and Employment Relations.

Mr. Levin is a lifelong advocate for good jobs, economic growth, healthy labor-management relations and workers’ rights. In the 1980s, Levin organized health care workers for the Service Employees International Union and co-founded a nonprofit to respond to workplace implications of the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. From 1994 to 2006, Levin worked on a wide range of national workplace policy issues in Washington, DC. He served as the staff attorney to the presidential Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations chaired by the late John Dunlop. In the Deputy Secretary’s office of the U.S. Department of Labor, he worked closely with employers, unions and other groups on policies ranging from the National Labor Relations Act’s Section 8(a)(2); the proposed TEAM Act; the Federal Transit Act’s provisions affecting mass transit workers; and reform of the overtime pay requirements of the FLSA. At the national AFL-CIO, he created and led the innovative Union Summer program, engineered experimental multi-union organizing projects in five targeted cities across the U.S., and led the Voice@Work Campaign to transform U.S. labor laws to fit 21st Century realities.

Art Pulaski Executive Secretary-Treasurer, California Labor Federation

Art Pulaski has served as the Executive Secretary-Treasurer and Chief Officer of the California Labor Federation since 1996. Pulaski has reinvigorated grassroots activism in unions and championed support for new organizing. Under his leadership, the Federation has helped to elect worker-friendly candidates in the State Legislature and won the passage of landmark legislation.

In that time, the Federation’s achievements have included restoring daily overtime pay, raising the minimum wage, increasing benefits for injured and unemployed workers and passing the nation’s first comprehensive Paid Family Leave law. In 2003, the Federation won an historic law to extend employer-based health care in California. While the law was later overturned in a referendum, its passage helped redefine the debate on health care reform.

Pulaski has served on numerous gubernatorial panels and commissions on economic progress and workforce development. He was a founder of one of California’s model childcare centers, called PalCare, and served as president of nationally televised PBS series “We Do the Work”, the Labor Project for Working Families and the California Works Foundation.

William E. Spriggs, Assistant Secretary for Policy, US Department of Labor (Invited)

William Spriggs was nominated by President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Policy. He was confirmed by the Senate on October 21, 2009. Dr. Spriggs is a recognized expert in labor policy and research. For over 25 years, he has worked as an educator, researcher and advocate for working families and low-income communities.

At the time of his nomination, Dr. Spriggs was Chair of the Department and a professor of Economics at Howard University in Washington, DC, a post he held since December 2005. While there he also served as Chair of the Independent Health Care Trust for UAW Retirees of Ford Motor Company, the board of the Retiree Health Administration Corporation which administers the health care trusts for UAW retirees of Ford and General Motors, and he was Chair of the UAW Retirees of the Dana Corporation Health and Welfare Trust. Dr. Spriggs was also a Senior Fellow with the Community Service Society of New York. He served as Vice Chair of the Board of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Education and Leadership Institute. From 1988 to 2004, he was Executive Director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality

Dr. Spriggs held various positions in government service during the Clinton Administration: in 1993 and 1994 he led the staff of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and in 1997 and 1998 he worked at the Department of Commerce and at the Small Business Administration. He served as a senior economist for the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress from 1994 to 1997.

After graduating cum laude from Williams College in 1977, he attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison—where Dr. Spriggs earned a Ph.D. in Economics and served as co-president of American Federation of Teachers Local #3220.

Sandi Vito, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry

Sandi Vito serves as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry. As Secretary, she manages more than 6,000 employees in 200 offices statewide that work in dynamic partnership with business and labor to protect, promote and nurture the economic interests of Pennsylvania’s millions of workers and more than 250,000 employers.
  
Prior to her appointment as secretary, Vito served as the department’s Deputy Secretary for Workforce Development, where she helped to devise Job Ready PA – a complete overhaul of the commonwealth’s workforce development system, focused on the development of Industry Partnerships and targeted worker training programs.
   
Upon nominating Sandi Vito for the position of Secretary in February of 2008, Governor Edward G. Rendell said, Vito “has proven to everyone that she has what it takes to help our hardworking men and women find better jobs and to become the highly skilled employees for whom companies are looking.” Ms. Vito is the department’s 32nd Secretary and the second woman to hold the position since the department’s creation in 1913.

Joel S. Yudken, Principal and Founder of High Road Strategies, LLC

Joel S. Yudken, Ph.D, Principal and Founder of High Road Strategies, LLC is a nationally known expert on industrial, energy, economic development, and technology policy issues. In a career spanning four decades, he has held a wide range of professional positions in labor, government, academia, industrial, and public interest organizations. His broad background and training in engineering, political, and socio-economic systems enables him to apply a range of qualitative and quantitative research and analytical tools to his work. In addition, his federal government experience—in Congress and in the Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership—instilled in him a keen understanding of how the legislative process and government institutions work, critical to developing pragmatic policy solutions.

Dr. Yudken has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of policy issues, including manufacturing competitiveness, energy and electricity regulation, economic conversion, information technology and the Internet, workforce development, and science and technology R&D. He has authored or coauthored several books, major reports and studies, and numerous published articles. He also has been an invited speaker at conferences, forums and workshops throughout the United States and internationally, including India, South Africa, Europe and Canada.

He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Science in Engineering-Economic Systems (Dept. of Management Science & Engineering) and Ph.D. in Technology and Society from Stanford University.