Candace Archer is the Policy Director at the AFL-CIO where she manages a team of policy experts who advocate for unions and workers' rights. Prior to joining the AFL-CIO, she was a university professor who taught classes and published on political economy. As an academic, she became involved in the labor movement and led the campaign to unionize the faculty of Bowling Green State University. The campaign created the largest faculty bargaining unit that had been won in a decade. After successfully negotiating their first contract, she moved to DC to work on economic policy and labor issues and did so in organized labor at the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and in the non-profit sector at Americans for Financial Reform. She holds a Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Delaware and has published widely on global finance and financial crisis. She is a fiercely proud native of New Jersey, although loves her current home city (hopefully 51st state) Washington, DC.