Bridging the gap between policymakers and working people—state by state.
CSLI is an association of leaders, scholars, advocates, and practitioners working to strengthen worker power by advancing practical state-level tools for raising labor standards across industries and occupations.
Our work focuses on state-level workforce standards councils: cross-partisan public bodies that bring workers, employers, and government together to establish baseline standards for particular industries or occupations. These councils can help workers meaningfully improve wages, benefits, and working conditions while reducing low-road competition and giving workers a voice in the rules that govern their work.
Traditional collective bargaining remains essential, but far too many workers today lack meaningful access to workplace voice, representation, and power. Workforce standards councils complement, rather than replace, enterprise-based collective bargaining by providing practical state-level strategies that can deliver tangible benefits for workers.
CSLI brings together leaders from labor and business, policy experts, scholars, organizers, civic thinkers, and public officials to analyze innovative approaches, promote practical reforms, and help states design durable labor institutions.
Our goal is to promote collaboration across ideological and stakeholder groups while helping states build labor standards that make work more fair, more stable, and more secure.
Workforce Standards Councils
A practical tool for raising standards across sectors
Workforce standards councils are state-created and state-supervised public bodies that bring workers, employers, and regulators together to establish baseline standards for particular industries or occupations. They are grounded in the real-world experience of businesses and workers in an industry.
These bodies give workers a consequential role in decisions about wages, benefits, scheduling, training, health and safety, and enforcement. They are especially important in sectors where worksite-by-worksite bargaining does not reach enough people.
Done well, workforce standards councils can raise standards, reduce low-road competition, support responsible businesses, and give workers a durable voice in decisions that affect their lives.
States can build worker power now
Today’s federal labor law leaves too many workers without meaningful power to improve their wages, benefits, and working conditions. States have the opportunity to lead.
By building stronger workforce standards, states can respond to the real pressures facing working families, improve job quality across sectors, and show what a more thriving local economy can look like in practice.
States have long served as laboratories of democracy, providing opportunities to design new approaches, evaluate what works, and strengthen labor standards without waiting for changes in federal labor law.
Mission
To build sectoral power and improve standards for workers at the state level—collaborating with government and industry to innovate the future of labor law.
Vision
That hard-working Americans in every state and sector have the power, resources, and voice to secure economic dignity for themselves and their families.
Values
Principled collaboration. Worker-driven impact. Resiliency. Innovation.
People
Steering Committee
SA
Sohrab Ahmari
Sohrab Ahmari is the US editor of UnHerd and a Moynihan Public Scholar at the City University of New York. Previously, he co-founded Compact magazine and spent nearly a decade at News Corp., as an editor and columnist with The Wall Street Journal opinion pages in New York and London, and as the op-ed editor of the New York Post. His books include Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What To Do About It and The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, both published by Penguin Random House. His next book, The Triumph of Normal, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.
RB
Ron Bloom
Co-Chair
Ron Bloom is vice chair and a managing partner of Brookfield Asset Management and a former chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service. He previously advised the United Steelworkers and served in senior Obama administration roles on the auto rescue and manufacturing policy. Across organized labor, government, and finance, he brings deep experience in labor-management negotiations, industrial strategy, and public approaches to strengthening workers' economic security.
WL
Wilma B. Liebman
Co-Chair
Wilma B. Liebman was named Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in January 2009 by President Barack Obama and served as Chairman until August 2011. Since then, she has served in many advisory and consulting roles and has taught at several universities and law schools, including, currently, New York University School of Law. Wilma was first appointed as a Member of the NLRB in 1997 by President Bill Clinton and was twice reappointed by President George W. Bush. Earlier, she served as Deputy Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and Counsel for the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen as well as for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
DR
David Rolf
Co-Chair
David Rolf is founder and President Emeritus of SEIU 775 and a former SEIU International Vice President. In the 1990s and 2000s, he led some of the largest union organizing campaigns since the New Deal era. He led the nation's first two successful $15 local minimum wage campaigns. He has founded and led union-sponsored health plans, pension funds, training programs, technology platforms, and worker centers. He is the author of The Fight for $15 (New Press, 2016) and A Roadmap for Rebuilding Worker Power (Century Foundation, 2018).
AS
Andy Stern
Andrew Stern is the President Emeritus of the Service Employees International Union, a Senior Fellow at the Economic Security Project, and author of two books on the future of work. He continues to focus on organizing and public policy that enhances workers' economic security, most recently helping organize and provide benefits to rideshare drivers. He spends his retirement trying to create organizing innovations to help gain power for workers, including the founding of CSLI.
Staff
AG
Andrew Greenblatt
Partnerships Director
Andrew Greenblatt has worked with labor leaders on practical models for expanding worker power through state policy and new forms of worker organization. As founder and executive director of the IDG Benefits Fund, he helped develop state-mandated benefits programs for app-based drivers.
RS
Richard Allen Smith
Editorial and Digital Content Director
Richard Allen Smith edits Labor Innovation. He is a writer, editor, and communications strategist with more than 15 years of experience working at the intersection of labor, public policy, advocacy, and philanthropy. He spent nearly a decade at the National Education Association, America's largest labor union, where he led communications around the #RedForEd movement, and most recently led public affairs work at Arnold Ventures across public finance, infrastructure, higher education, and criminal justice. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, TIME, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The Guardian, and he holds a master's degree in nonfiction writing from Johns Hopkins University.
VM
Veronica Miller
Operations and Finance Manager
Veronica Miller supports CSLI's operations and partnership work, helping coordinate the people, systems, and relationships needed to advance the organization's mission.
Advisory Board
Roy Bahat
Oren Cass
Dennis Dabney
Bill Dirksen
Brian Dijkema
Cynthia Estlund
Jose Garza
Patrick Gaspard
Chris Griswold
Seth Harris
Tom Kochan
Michael Lind
David Madland
David Marchick
Sean McGarvey
Marty Mulloy
Ai-Jen Poo
Pete Stavros
Jerry Taylor
Ruy Teixeira
Dorian Warren
Felicia Wong
