Beth Shulman

Author, attorney and organizer

Beth Shulman is the author of "The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans" (September 2003, The New Press), a revealing examination of low wage work in the United States.

Shulman currently co-chairs the Fairness Initiative on Low-Wage Work, a project to increase public awareness about the problems of low-wage work and the need for policy change to respond to this issue and works with the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Inequality and Future of Work Projects. She speaks throughout the country and lectures at conferences and universities on low-wage work, inequality, workplace issues, business-labor relations, work/family conflicts, employment discrimination and the role of unions in our society. She was an adjunct professor at the School of Business and Public Management at The George Washington University.

For twenty- two years, Shulman served in various positions with The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union including thirteen years as a Vice President and Director of the UFCW's Health Care, Insurance, Finance and Professional Employees Division. She began her career as a civil rights lawyer in Memphis, Tennessee focusing on employment discrimination and school desegregation cases.

Shulman served on President Clinton's Advisory Council for School to Work Opportunities. She was a Trustee of the Board of the National Planning Association, a member of the Domestic Strategy Group of the Aspen Institute and an Executive Board member of the Industrial Relations Research Association. She currently serves on the Executive Boards of the National Employment Law Project, the Financial Markets Center, American Rights at Work, the Economic and Social Research Institute, Wider Opportunities for Women, Ayuda and the Perry School Community Services Center.