Liz Weiss is the deputy director of the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute. She leads the management and implementation of a broad portfolio of federal grants. Weiss has extensive experience in labor and workforce development policy at both the local and federal levels, particularly on apprenticeships. Most recently, she worked as committee director of the Washington, D.C., Council’s Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. At the D.C. Council, she authored a law to create a public sector apprenticeship program, led oversight of agency workforce development programming and staffed a member of the state/local Workforce Investment Board. Weiss also served in the Obama administration’s Department of Labor policy office and for Sen. Tom Harkin in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee labor office. While in the Senate, she participated in the drafting of the 2014 reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Weiss also has worked for Interfaith Worker Justice, organizing the faith community around low-wage workers’ rights, and the Center for American Progress, focusing on women’s economic security. She began her career at Human Rights Watch, where she joined the newly formed staff union (Communications Workers of America [CWA] Local 1180), served as shop steward and first developed her passion for labor rights. She has a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s from George Washington University.