Biography
Jessica has served as the Director of and an instructor in the Labor Education Center since 2016. She joined the labor movement first as an organizer and staff union steward at UNITE HERE international from 2006-2009. She then went on to teach and earn a PhD in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While there she was a leader and steward with the UIC Graduate Employees Organization (IFT-AFT Local 6297). Her doctoral research focused on the labor movement, worker centers, mass incarceration and criminalization, immigration, citizenship, race and ethnicity, civil society, precarious work, and labor market restructuring. During that time she worked closely as a volunteer and researcher with multiple Chicago based worker centers. Since 2014 she has also been an Advisory Committee member of the Labor Research Action Network (LRAN). Email Jessica at jcook18@depaul.edu.