About
Patricia is a labor and political leader with a proven record of experience on grassroots & union organizing, electoral campaigns, government affairs, organizational management, higher and labor education.
Currently, she is the Co-Director of the NYS AFL-CIO/Cornell
Union Leadership Institute, and an Extension Faculty at The Worker Institute, ILR-Cornell
University where she develops curriculum and trainings in four core areas;
leadership development, globalization, trade and immigrant worker rights
policy. She is a faculty member of the National Labor Leadership Initiative
(NLLI), a program of the National AFL-CIO and Cornell that seeks to advance the
principles of transformational leadership within in the U.S. labor and workers
rights movement.
Patricia is an advocate for women empowerment. She is the
former President and current Board Member of Latinas United for Political Empowerment
(LUPE PAC) in NJ and a founding Board Member of PODER PAC, two political action
committees advancing women representation in government and politics. She is a
member of the Advisory Committee for Eleccion Latina/Ready to Run, a joint
program of LUPE and the CAWP-Eagleton, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Patricia
has been recognized as one of NJ's most influential political leaders by
several publications: ROI-NJ News 2019 Influencer, lnsider, NJ's 100
Policymaker for the years 2019, 2018 and 2017; Observer/Politicker's 100 Power
List in 2016; PolitickerNJ's Top 51 Most Influential Latino Leaders in NJ for
2015. In 2017, Patricia was recognized as one of El Salvador's "100 Most
Influential Women in the Diaspora," an honor that she is especially proud
of as an American citizen of Salvadoran descent.
Patricia's labor and political career began as a strategic
campaigner and organizer for the former Apparel and Textile Workers Union (UNITE)
in CA in the mid 1990s. Throughout her 20 years of labor experience, she has
played critical roles in many labor rights struggles representing American
workers as the Assistant Natl Political Director for SEIU; Natl Political
Director for Workers United, SEIU; NJ State Director for UNITEHERE in NJ; Natl
Legislative Director for UNITE; and Natl Deputy Director for LCLAA, AFLCIO. She
has worked as a political consultant for numerous NJ races including Corzine
'09 & Booker 2013 & 14 and Mayor Wilda Diaz, 2012 & 2016. In 2008
she served as the Labor Outreach Coordinator for Pres Obama's campaign in NJ,
and later became an Obama 08 Delegate. She currently serves as the Vice- Chair
for the NJ Campaign of Bernie Sanders for President.
She is a columnist to several publications including The
Star Ledger, lnsiderNJ, Observer/PolitickerNJ, Latinalist, and SiTuQuieres.com.
She appears as a guest commentator on media outlets such as NPR Radio, CSPAN,
UNIVISION and TELEMUNDO. She is fully bilingual in English and Spanish.
She lives in Califon, NJ, with her husband Robert, and sons
Diego and Enrique.
You can follow her on Twitter @pcamposmedina or Linkedln at @patricia-campos-medina.
