About Lou

Louis Kimmel is co-founder and current executive director New Labor in New Jersey. New Labor is a worker center with 3 locations and over 3,000 dues paying members. His first years at New Labor were spent as a “salt” in temporary employment agencies with the purpose of identifying the needs of workers in this industry in the community of New Brunswick, NJ. Based on the information and the relationships developed with him, the organization designed its program work. The worker center started with educational programs in English as a second language and computer classes. From there it evolved to health and safety in the work place and leadership development. He later became the organization’s Director of Operations and Membership and for the last 2 years has been the director of the organization. Lou has worked at and been involved with the growth of New Labor since 2000. Kimmel has developed participatory educational curriculum that utilizes the small group activity method for a variety of workplace health and safety trainings, and has trained hundreds of workers at different worker centers to be peer-to- peer trainers. Kimmel has successfully carried out the mission of New Labor to “Empower workers to use their voices to make changes in their communities, in their workplaces and in politics.” Currently, Kimmel is spearheading a collaboration with the United Steel Workers to charter New Labor’s own USW local with the main goal of organizing temp and warehouse workers. Kimmel, also serves as Co-Chair of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) worker center steering committee, and serves on the executive boards of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice and New Jersey Work Environment Council.