Caitlin Pearce Email & Phone Number

New York City Metropolitan Area

Freelancers Union is the largest and fastest-growing advocacy organization for independent workers. As Executive Director, I advanced legislation to expand protections for freelancers, asserted the union’s political influence on issues like nonpayment, discrimination, and access to safety nets, launched workforce development programs, and grew the Union's membership to half a million freelancers. I oversaw Freelancers Insurance Agency, the union’s brokerage business, our federal and NYS PACs, and Working Today, our (c)(3) nonprofit.

Brooklyn

I built our community and influence by leading advocacy campaigns, growing member resources, and enabling member-led organizing. In 2016, I led a campaign and built a coalition of over 50 labor and business allies to unanimously pass the landmark Freelance Isn’t Free Act, a New York City law protecting independent workers from wage theft. In its second year, the law successfully recovered over $1 million for freelance workers.

I supported organizational growth + development by facilitating strategy work and translating vision into new initiatives and directions. In 2014 I helped to launch Freelancing in America, the most widely-cited measure of the size and economic impact of the freelance workforce, in partnership with Upwork.

Baltimore, Maryland Area

I joined Hopkins’ Sociology PhD program to research labor and international development. I conducted fieldwork in Argentina, interviewing workers and trade unionists for research examining the development of cooperative and social economy movements. As a teaching assistant and instructor, I mentored undergraduate students and created and taught a course called Popular Music and Social Change.

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Sociology; Certificate In Cross-National Sociology And International Development

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Sociology; Minor In Latin American Studies