Richard Bensinger is the former Organizing Director of the national AFL-CIO and the former Organizing Director of the United Auto Workers. He is the founder of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute, which recruited and trained organizers, focusing on bringing women, people of color, and young people into the movement. Richard works with Workers United in Upstate New York, where he helped launch the Starbucks campaign in Buffalo, NY. Richard has also written several books on organizing and teaches the next generation of worker-organizers at the Inside Organizer School (IOS).