HISTORY OF LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES
Who We Are
Temp Worker Justice is led by temp workers, advocates, organizers, researchers, and labor educators.
National Temp Worker Council (NTWC)
The National Temp Worker Council (NTWC) is a volunteer group of current and recent temporary workers tasked with improving conditions and outcomes for workers in the temporary staffing industry. The group represents all temp workers by maintaining members from a wide range of industries and occupations, diverse personal backgrounds, and from locations across the country. Members may be nominated by labor organizations involved in the temp worker movement, or identified by TWJ for their leadership, knowledge, or ability.
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Contact Us if you are interested in joining the Council, or would like to nominate an individual. *Council meetings are conducted in English and Spanish.
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Staff
Roberto Clack
Executive Director
Roberto has spent time organizing in the housing, peace and labor movements. As part of his work in the peace movement Roberto helped organize Iraq Veterans Against War's (IVAW) Winter Soldier event in 2008 and IVAW's NATO Ceremony in 2012. As part of his work with workers centers he has been a part of winning major legislation in Illinois including the Fair Work Week campaign, the Chicago Sick Time ordinance, the Illinois Clean Jobs Act and helped stop new temporary staffing agency offices from gaining special use permits in his home town in Joliet. Roberto started the first worker center based labor and environment department in the country and was a founding executive board member of the Illinois Green New Deal Coalition along with serving as an elected board member of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. Roberto has helped raise millions of dollars for grassroots organizations in his two decades of organizing and his communications work has been featured in publications including: Vice News, The New Republic, USA Today, In These Times, The Progressive, The Chicago Tribune, WBEZ Radio along with many others.
Dave DeSario
Associate Director
(Founding Member)
Dave has been a temporary worker many times over and his experiences led him to become an advocate for others. While working as a temp in 2009 he created the leading website for information on temp staffing issues, connecting with hundreds of temps across the country to provide resources and referrals. Dave is a member of the NIOSH NORA Services Sector Committee advising on government research priorities related to safety in staffing, on the Organizing Committee of the Temp Worker Union Alliance Project, and is the creator of the award-winning documentary about temp work A Day's Work (2015). He has used the film in education, training, and outreach with more than 150 national and local organizations as he has worked to build capacity for collective action on temp staffing issues.
TWJ Board of Directors
Dr. Jessica Cook-Qurayshi
(Founding Member)
Jes is the Director of the Depaul University Labor Education Center. She joined the labor movement as a staff organizer and staff union steward at the UNITE HERE international from 2006-2009. She then spent 7 years as a leader and steward with the Graduate Employees Organization (IFT-AFT Local 6297) and has worked closely as a volunteer and researcher with multiple Chicago based worker centers since 2010, directly working in support of temp worker campaigns. Her labor research is focused on worker centers, mass incarceration and criminalization, immigration, citizenship, race and ethnicity, civil society, precarious work, and labor market restructuring.
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Harris Freeman
Harris is a professor at Western New England School of Law and is an affiliated faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Labor Center where he teaches courses in labor and employment law. He has written extensively on precarious work and lectured on this topic across the U.S. and at the National Law School of India, Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzho, China and in Hong Kong. He has testified three times before Congressional committees on the rights of temp workers under federal labor law. Professor Freeman was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board in 2009 and served for 7 years on the appellate agency that oversees public sector labor relations in Massachusetts. He sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Labor and Society and has been a cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. Before entering the legal profession, Professor Freeman was a journeymen toolmaker, labor activist and member of the United Auto Workers Union and the International Association of Machinists. He is currently a member of the Massachusetts Society of Professors (NEA).
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Dr. George Gonos
(Founding Member)
George is professor emeritus at the State University of New York and currently adjunct professor at Florida International University’s Center for Labor Research and Studies. He first encountered abuses within the staffing industry as a community organizer and activist in the 1980’s. George’s academic research paved the way for the modern study of the temporary staffing industry. His work has been instrumental in understanding the legal history, alternatives to the current model of agency employment, and has been referenced in more than 100 other articles and books on the subject. George grew up in the “the most industrial town in America” and was shaped by his father’s experience as, what his employer called, an “unskilled” worker.
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Laura Padin
Laura is a senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project (NELP). Her work focuses on policies that improve workplace standards and economic security for the contingent workforce, including temporary workers and workers in the “gig” economy. Prior to joining NELP, Laura was an attorney at the labor union coalition Change to Win, where she provided legal support to organizing and corporate accountability campaigns in many industries, including retail, telecommunications, fast food, and logistics. Laura believes deeply that all work has dignity and all working people deserve economic security.
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Sophia Zaman
(Founding Member)
Sophia is the Executive Director of Raise the Floor Alliance, where she advocates for policies that improve the lives of low-wage workers, oversees operations, and serves as the organization's main spokesperson. Her work was instrumental in the passage of the Responsible Job Creation Act (2017) - landmark legislation that sets a new standard for temp worker protections. Sophia brings over 5 years of experience in organizing, on issues pertaining to racial justice, student-labor solidarity, gender & sexuality justice, and electoral engagement. Before joining Raise the Floor, she was elected as President of the U.S. Student Association, where she represented over one million college students at the White House, Department of Education, and Congress on policies related to affordable and accessible higher education. She is the proud daughter of her Bangladeshi immigrant mother, who taught her to always seek justice and live purposefully.
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Alejandra Domenzain
Alejandra is a Program Coordinator at the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is responsible for developing and overseeing projects addressing the health and safety of immigrant, low-wage workers in a variety of high-hazard industries. Alejandra started her work in the field of low-wage immigrant workers at National Council of La Raza in Washington, DC writing curricula and providing training and technical assistance to community-based organizations around the country. Her work experience also includes the Garment Worker Center, where she was a health educator, advocate, and program manager, and Sweatshop Watch, where as Assistant Director she worked on state-wide campaigns and policy initiatives in coalition with other advocates of low-wage immigrant workers.