Erica Smiley is the executive director of Jobs With Justice. Serving as one of the lead architects, Smiley has been instrumental in developing the strategic vision of Jobs With Justice to build power for impacted working people through expanding their collective bargaining power as one way to redefine and claim their democracy, while addressing issues of inequality and poverty. She is co-authoring a book with Sarita Gupta on the future of organizing and collective bargaining, and has authored several related articles in the Journal on Class, Race and Corporate Power, the Labor Education and Research Association (LERA), and other publications.