The Workers Lab

The Workers Lab is an Oakland, California-headquartered US worker-power accelerator co-founded in 2014 by Carmen Rojas and David Rolf, together with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Rojas, who holds a doctorate in city and regional planning from UC Berkeley and had spent two decades in the philanthropic and nonprofit sector — including as director of strategic programmes at the Mitchell Kapor Foundation — built The Workers Lab on a structural analogy to Silicon Valley startup accelerators: sprint-based idea refinement, cohort mentorship, and follow-on network access applied to the challenge of building economic power for low-wage workers. The organisation describes its role as the "National Home for Worker-Centered Innovation," investing in entrepreneurs, community organisers, technologists, and economic-justice organisations to create scalable solutions that shift power to working people. Leadership has since transitioned to CEO Adrian Haro; by FY2024 the organisation reported $3.23 million in revenue and $1.21 million in assets against total cumulative investment in worker-centered innovation exceeding $15 million.

The Innovation Fund

The Innovation Fund is The Workers Lab's signature accelerator program and primary mechanism for resourcing worker-centered experimentation. The Fund awards grants of up to $200,000 — paired with a six-month fellowship, monthly peer-community participation, coaching from impact-focused practitioners, access to worker networks and investor partners, and a year of follow-on mentorship — to innovators developing early-stage ideas for and with workers. The programme prioritises entrepreneurs of colour, women, first-time founders, and innovators with lived experience in their issue area; across the portfolio 75% of fellows are entrepreneurs of colour and 65% are women-led organisations or initiatives. Since 2014 the Fund has invested $8 million across 100+ innovators reaching 42 US states. The 2018 Fund received 334 pitches from 13 countries; by 2024 applications spanned 10 countries and 33 US states. Early portfolio standouts include California Harvesters, described as one of the largest farmworker cooperatives in the United States, which gave 800 farmworkers access to healthcare and improved working conditions through cooperative-structure negotiation.

AI and worker power

The Workers Lab's most direct connection to the AI-accountability movement is its 2024 Innovation Fund cohort, which designated four of nine fellows specifically for Generative AI projects, and its 2025 programme, which explicitly invites "new ideas that leverage Gen AI to develop worker-centered solutions." The organisation's public position on AI is unambiguous: without intentional worker involvement, "Gen AI could deepen inequality through job loss, surveillance, and concentrated profit and corporate power," and "involving workers in the design and governance of AI is essential, especially where labor protections and policy adoption lag." The 2024 Gen AI cohort illustrates the breadth of worker-centered AI applications the Fund backs: ThriveLink (voice-activated technology connecting low-income adults with reading barriers to social programmes without internet or smartphone), PLEA — Prison Labor Exploitation Awareness (AI tools enabling advocacy for incarcerated workers' rights via a prison-labour database), Planscribe (generative AI reducing special-education teachers' administrative burden), and Briico (AI-assisted training for immigrant entrepreneurs). Beyond the Innovation Fund, The Workers Lab's technology arm developed an AI chatbot in partnership with SEIU 503 to make union contract information accessible to members on demand, and its research agenda tracks "how workers leverage generative AI" alongside displacement risks facing gig, disabled, and immigrant workers.

Research and technology

The Workers Lab conducts participatory action research in which frontline workers lead projects rather than serve as passive subjects — positioning workers as researchers of their own conditions. 400+ paid participant-researchers, 80% people of colour, have contributed to projects on gig work, youth employment, and worker experiences with emerging technology; a National Gig Work Survey was announced for 2025. The technology arm, operating under the WorkIt Labs brand, co-builds and tests worker-centred technology solutions in partnership with institutions and enterprises, including the AI chatbot tools noted above and a 2023 gig-work platform — supported by a $50,000 MacArthur grant — connecting workers to neighbourhood employers of record that offer temporary positions as W-2 employment with standard rights and benefits.

Funders

The Workers Lab's upstream funders span the labour movement and US progressive philanthropy. SEIU is the co-founding institutional backer and continues to provide partial funding. The Ford Foundation's $400,000 general support grant (August 2021–November 2022) came through its "Future of Work(ers)" programme under the Fair Economies thematic area. The Omidyar Network included the Workers Lab Innovation Fund among grantees in its 2020 $35 million Reimagining Capitalism / worker-power commitment, a portfolio that also included the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Jobs With Justice, and United for Respect.