Charlene Obernauer is an advocate, organizer, and educator who has spent the last decade and a half working with nonprofits. Charlene has focused on issue-oriented campaigns and non-profit management to build strong organizations and win concrete victories for working people. She is currently the Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH). She began at NYCOSH in January of 2014 and since has brought an intersectional approach to the organization’s work to make connections between many movements for social justice and workers’ rights.
Previously, Charlene was the Executive Director of Long Island Jobs with Justice and served as a national trainer for the Jobs with Justice Organizing Training, where she traveled across the country with an expert team of trainers to teach the organization’s approach to winning campaigns. Her background is in coalition-based organizing and she cut her teeth as a student organizer with the Student/Farmworker Alliance and United Students Against Sweatshops.