USFFA Staff

Karen Sawislak has almost 20 years of experience as a labor lawyer and union staff professional based here in the Bay Area. She has worked extensively with unionized professionals in engineering, health care, and higher education throughout California. At UC-AFT, another CFT higher education affiliate, she bargained and enforced contracts for faculty and librarians in the UC system. Karen has a special interest in representing professionals at mission-driven organizations and is especially proud to have started an organizing project for legal nonprofit workers at her last union job at IFPTE Local 20 in Oakland. Karen began her career as an academic; she is a U.S. social and labor historian who has taught at Yale, Stanford and U.C. Berkeley. She is a current member of the California bar and also a certified mediator.