Sara Horowitz

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1996

Sara Horowitz

Working Today

http://www.freelancersunion.org

Brooklyn, New York, United States

Civil and Human Rights

The Bold Idea:

According to the Economic Policy Institute, 41.8 million workers are free agents in the work force. These free agents have a difficult time accessing quality health coverage at group rates. A study by Working Today found that 30% of independent workers do not have health insurance. Insurance that is available to individuals is prohibitively expensive.

Working Today represents the needs and concerns of America's growing independent workforce through advocacy, information and service. Working Today helps independent workers access key protections such as health insurance and other benefits by building links with professional associations, membership- and community-based organizations, unions and companies. Working Today also educates policymakers and the public about the needs of this new workforce. It advocates for policy changes, calling upon lawmakers to create a pragmatic safety net of laws and protections, services and benefits that people can rely on as they move from job to job or assignment to assignment.

Biography:

Sara Horowitz founded Working Today in 1995 to represent the needs and concerns of the growing independent workforce. Working Today seeks to update the nation’s social safety net, developing systems so that all working people can access affordable benefits, regardless of their job arrangement. As executive director, Sara takes an entrepreneurial approach, pursuing creative, market-based solutions to pressing social problems.

In recognition of her efforts to create a self-sustaining organization of flexible workers, Sara was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1999. In 1996, the Stern Family Fund named her a Public Interest Pioneer, and she was also an echoing green fellow for four years. Recently she was named one of Esquire Magazine’s Fifty Best & Brightest.

Before founding Working Today, Sara was a labor attorney in private practice and a union organizer with 1199, the National Health and Human Service Employees Union. Prior to joining 1199, Sara was a public defender in New York City.

A lifelong resident of Brooklyn, NY, Sara comes from a long line of labor advocates, including her father, who was a labor lawyer, and her grandfather, who was vice president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. This family history of involvement in the labor movement led Sara to Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where she was awarded its labor prize. She later earned a law degree cum laude from the SUNY Buffalo Law School and a master's degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Sara’s articles on the new flexible workforce have been published in USA Today, The New Democrat and Industrial Relations Research Association Year 2000 Volume. Working Today, which is supported by grants from groups such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, has been featured throughout the popular and business press, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired and Fast Company; as well as on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered". Working Today has been recognized three times as one of the leading social entrepreneurs by Fast Company magazine.