Les Leopold

After graduating from Oberlin College and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, Les Leopold co-founded the Labor Institute in 1976, a nonprofit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment, and economics for unions, worker centers, and community organizations. He continues to serve as executive director of the Labor Institute and is currently working to build a national economic educational train-the-trainer program with unions and community groups. Les has written several books, including Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice (Labor Institute Press, 2015), How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America’s Wealth (John Wiley and Sons, 2013), The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and—What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009), and The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2006). The Mazzocchi story won the Gold Medal from Independent Publisher Book Awards for best biography in 2008.