Lauren Jacobs
Philadelphia, PA
As the Executive Director of PowerSwitch Action, Lauren Jacobs's mission is to ensure that our amazing network of organizations and extremely talented staff achieves its purpose: making multiracial feminist democracy a reality.
Lauren is a committed organizer. She has dedicated her life to supporting working people as they gain power to shape their own working and living conditions. Lauren began organizing factories with UNITE in the South and later joined SEIU. During her 17 years at SEIU she served in a number of roles, from organizer to 1st Vice President. Over the course of those years, she organized thousands of previously non-union janitors and security officers in three major metropolitan areas. She led contract campaigns for tens of thousands of workers in Boston and the Bay Area, which resulted in breakthroughs in wages, healthcare and other benefits. Lauren's most recent work was with the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC) as the organization's National Organizing Director.
Lauren has a long history with PowerSwitch Action affiliates. She was on the founding board of the network’s Boston affiliate, Community Labor United, and worked in coalition with affiliates across California and Pittsburgh.
She joined PowerSwitch Action (then the Partnership for Working Families) in 2016. Lauren led the process which birthed the Long Term Agenda, has grown the organizations's national resources, expanded the network and staff, and, along with Jackie Cornejo, supported our early efforts with Stand Up Nashville. Lauren has authored chapters in Igniting Justice and Progressive Power: The Partnership for Working Families Cities and The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy, as well as written for The Boston Review and The Forge.
Lauren is a proud native New Yorker, a daughter of Harlem, an intermediate knitter, and a terrible but dedicated artist.