The Center for Working Families

Founded in 2006 by long-time community activists, veteran union organizers and experienced policy advocates, the Center for Working Families aims to bring innovative ideas into the public debate, to provide elected leaders with the research support to make bold policy proposals, and to strategize with organizations and activists to build effective campaigns to enact them.

By combining policy capacity; our extensive network of relationships with membership organizations, policy makers and experts; and a focus on smart campaigns, we can make real gains to improve the lives of working families in New York .

Advisory Board

Staff (for contact info, click here)

Jason Kang Angell
Director, Center for Working Families

Details coming soon.

Deirdre Schifeling
Co-Director, Center for Working Families

Deirdre Schifeling received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1996 and was accepted into the AFL-CIO's Organizing Institute union organizer training program. For the next two years, she worked with the United Steelworkers of America, organizing steel workers in pipe mills, mini mills, and fabricating plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. She later left for New York and organized retail workers for UNITE, the needle trades union. After witnessing the flagrant abuses by employers during union elections, Deirdre decided to work for systemic political change to protect workers' rights. She joined the staff of the newly-formed Working Families Party and spent the next two years organizing grassroots chapters and managing local issue and electoral campaigns in Buffalo, Long Island, and New York City .

In early 2001, she was named the WFP's statewide Organizing Director. Over the next two years, she recruited, trained and managed a staff of twelve organizers, who built membership-based chapters and fueled progressive policy campaigns. In 2003, she became the Director of the Minority Information Services (MIS) department for the New York State Senate's Democratic Conference. She worked under Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, supervising regional, policy and research staff. During a leave of absence in 2004, Deirdre served as Campaign Manager for Assemblyman Jeff Klein's winning campaign in a hotly contested State Senate race.

In 2005, she returned to her roots at the Working Families Party as its Deputy Director. In April of 2006, she gave birth to a daughter, followed by a maternity leave. She recently returned to her career in social change as founding Co-Director of the Center for Working Families.

Emmaia Gelman
Senior Policy Organizer, Center for Working Families

Emmaia is developing the Center's portfolio of policy ideas linking climate change, jobs, economic development and housing. Emmaia is a long-time organizer on housing, policing, AIDS and LGBT rights, as well as democracy issues in Northern Ireland & Palestine. She recently completed a mid-career Master's Degree in Urban Planning at MIT.