CPD is proud to announce the launch of a new initiative focused on equitable part-time work and just scheduling practices for low-wage workers led by Carrie Gleason, formerly the executive director and founder of the Retail Action Project (RAP).

Carrie envisioned RAP’s groundbreaking Just Hours New York campaign to restore predictable, livable hours in retail through grassroots worker-community action and policy change, and is excited to grow that work as part of the new Fair Workweek Initiative at CPD.

As the fastest growing low-wage sectors of the economy increasingly shift to a “just-in-time” model of scheduling employment, workers face growing insecurity and instability.  Only through an integrated strategy of worker organizing, critical research and policy action at the local, state and federal level will we ensure that our emerging economy provides quality employment for working families.

The Fair Workweek Initiative will convene key stakeholders, including community-based partners and national allies to formally launch this summer.

Click here for a video explaining how employers short-change workers through unscrupulous scheduling practices.

ABOUT CARRIE GLEASON:

Carrie Gleason co-founded the Retail Action Project (RAP), a fast-growing organization of retail workers dedicated to improving opportunities and standards in the retail industry.  As RAP’s Executive Director from 2010-2014, Carrie oversaw the organization’s base-building and strategic campaigns, research and empowering direct services to grow an industry voice for New York City retail workers. RAP emerged from an innovative community-labor partnership with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU/UFCW) and the Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) that helped thousands of retail workers in lower Manhattan successfully fight wage theft and discrimination, winning millions in unpaid wages. 

Carrie has provided analysis of the retail industry and low-wage worker scheduling trends for national policymakers and media outlets including NPR and the New York Times.

Carrie began organizing retail workers in 2005 and has worked in the labor movement for over 14 years, leading several winning unionization campaigns for the RWDSU and the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council (UNITE-HERE). She is a member of the Presidential Council of Cornell Women and served on the North Star Fund Community Funding Committee. Carrie was a 2009-2010 Charles H. Revson Fellow, a Program on the Future of New York City at Columbia University, and holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and son.