Board of Directors

Leonard Brown

Worksafe

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Leonard Brown is a dedicated worker leader and a board member of National COSH, committed to advancing worker rights and safety. Through his involvement with Worksafe’s Black Worker Initiative and as a participant in National COSH’s We Rise Leadership Academy, Leonard has embraced a journey of worker advocacy, amplifying the voices of those too often unheard.

With a career spanning cleaning, hospitality, and safety, Leonard finds his work both rewarding and emotionally challenging, particularly when encountering human suffering firsthand. Reflecting on his experiences, he shares: “At first, it was difficult to engage unhoused individuals, and I often found myself looking away from those caught in addiction or struggling with mental illness. But over time, I began to truly see and honor their humanity --because everyone is deserving of love and respect.”

Beyond his advocacy and work, Leonard enjoys writing, spending time with family and friends on his days off, and exploring new cultures through travel and cuisine. He remains deeply committed to building a more just and compassionate world for all workers.

Cipriano Belser

SoCalCOSH

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Cipriano Belser is a worker turned Organizer. His journey into the labor movement began 3 years ago while working in hospitality in Los Angeles. The exploitation he witnessed and experienced drove him to seek out ways to change and bring power to low wage workers. Beginning with volunteering with The Los Angeles Federation of Labor which led to being certified through their Organizer Training Institute, he then took on a research internship with Jobs To Move America, working to hold large manufactures accountable to their workers and the communities they built factories in. Cipriano stepped into full time organizing work with The Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles using previous work experience to build collective power with hospitality folks in LA. He joined the SoCalCOSH team in 2021 seeing power in the ways occupational health and safety allows worker advocacy across industries and communities.

José Frausto

Chicago Workers Collaborative ILCOSH

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José Frausto was born into the labor movement.

A Mexican immigrant, José grew up attending labor actions with his family, who were members of one of Mexico’s largest labor unions, during an era of great political and social change in Mexico. Due in part to that unrest, José immigrated to the United States in 1998 and found his first job as a temp worker where he experienced first hand the abuses and indignities that temp workers are forced to endure.

Seeing the same workplace abuses play out in the US as had existed in Mexico, José dedicated himself to social justice work, to improve the lives of workers who often had nowhere else to turn. Spending 17 years in community-based, direct service work, he organized a staff union and served as the President of AFSCME Local 2992 for 2 years.

In 2021 he joined the Chicago Workers Collaborative (CWC), a workers center dedicated to temp worker advocacy and legal defense, and has served as their Executive Director since 2023. Joining CWC to Chicago Jobs With Justice and PASO West Suburban Action, José helped form IL COSH to expand work on health and safety issues across Illinois workplaces.

Melissa Martinez-Chacon

Border Workers United

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Melissa Martinez is a worker rights advocate, whose leadership draws upon her own and her family’s journey from Mexico and in the US. As a former dreamer who moved to Texas from Mexico at age five, Melissa knew first-hand the importance of the DACA (Deferred Action for Child Arrivals) program. She spent five years advocating for its passage in DC, sharing her story with Congressional representatives. Melissa was introduced to labor rights when her mother became a victim of wage theft in 2014 while working long, extra hours at a restaurant in El Paso. As a result, Melissa began to involve herself in labor rights and Know Your Rights trainings, volunteering at Border Workers United, an El Paso-based COSH worker center, during breaks in college at the University of Texas at El Paso. She advocated for domestic workers and victims of trafficking by sharing their stories in Washington DC since many of them could not leave El Paso, being a border city with a 50 mile radius to USCIS checkpoints. After volunteering for two years at Border Workers United, Melissa became and has served as the group's administrator for over 6 years.

Latasha Palmer

Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights

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Latasha Palmer is dedicated to advancing worker health, safety, and dignity. As the Administrative Assistant at the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, she plays a vital role in supporting efforts to protect and uplift low-wage Black and Brown workers. Working alongside the dynamic leadership of Attorney Jaribu Hill, Latasha is committed to ensuring that every worker who seeks support is treated with the respect and justice they deserve.

Prior to this role, Latasha spent 16 years as a Pharmacy Technician, where her deep compassion for her community drove her to provide care and advocate for the health and well-being of those she served. Her lifelong dedication to service is rooted in a strong belief that all workers deserve safe conditions and fair treatment.

A proud resident of Greenville, MS, Latasha is happily married and the mother of two children, Jaylen and Imani. She is a 1998 graduate of O’Bannon High School and earned her Associate’s Degree in Science from Mississippi Delta Community College before obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Child Development from Delta State University.

Manuel Perez

Cincinnati Interfaith Worker Center

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Manuel Perez, an organizer at the Cincinnati Interfaith Worker Center (CIWC), came to the United States from Guatemala with a decade of experience working as a teacher and principal. After experiencing wage theft and discrimination while working at construction and restaurant jobs in the US, he came to CIWC seeking help and found community and a calling.

After attending worker rights meetings, participating in worker committees and then serving on the board of CIWC, he joined the staff - and now 14 years later has dedicated himself to educating and assisting workers in achieving their rights. He has gained credentials as an OSHA 10 construction outreach trainer and as a trainer in chemicals and disaster response through COSH’s collaboration with the International Chemical Workers Union Consortium.

For Manuel the Workers Center is more than a job; it is a passion, allowing him to educate workers about their rights, give them basic training on health and safety at work and OSHA 10 training for construction and assist volunteer lawyers and government agencies with recovering stolen wages.

Francisca Sepulveda

MassCOSH

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Francisca Sepulveda was born and raised in Santiago, Chile, Fran came to Boston in 2018 to pursue a Master’s at the Hult International Business School, where her studies focused on nonprofit management, communications and development.

During her Master’s program, Fran volunteered at National COSH, coordinating communications projects and conducting outreach and trainings in Spanish to immigrant workers.

Afterwards, Fran founded a new worker center in Somerville, Massachusetts at the Welcome Project, an immigrant advocacy organization. Through the Somerville Worker Center, Fran got to work closely with MassCOSH and the Brazilian Worker Center, who were close collaborators of the new program - and went on to serve in her current role as MassCOSH’s Immigrant Worker Center Director.

First as an Organizer and now as a Director, Fran has worked hard to create programming and outreach to ensure that workers could receive their hard-earned wages and return home safe and well. She enjoys working with the immigrant community, helping them organize at work, building relationships with the Injured Workers Committee, and participating in campaign efforts to better the conditions for temporary workers.

Charlie Uruchima

NYCOSH

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Charlie Uruchima was born and raised in New York City (Lenapehoking Territory) of Kichwa-Ecuadorian descent. Blending his passions for Quechua, community organizing, and digital media, in July 2014, Charlie co-founded Kichwa Hatari, the first Kichwa radio project in the U.S. The work of Kichwa Hatari has been featured in publications like the New York Times, CNN, RT, and the Associated Press. Since 2012, Charlie has worked extensively with grassroots organizations in New York City, like Democracy Now, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), and Brandworkers. Since 2016, Charlie has also consulted for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at NYU on indigenous audiovisual and education programs. Currently, Charlie works at the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) coordinating the Manhattan Justice for Workers Collaborative (MJWC), a city-wide workers’ rights initiative, where he recently helped organize and launch the New York City Workers’ Bill of Rights in five Latin American indigenous languages, including Kichwa, K’iche’, Mixteco, Garifuna, and Nahuatl.

Nicthé Verdugo

Northwest Workers’ Justice Project

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Nicthé Verdugo grew up in an activist-union household where she was no stranger to conversations at the dinner table about worker rights and worker dignity. In college, she was involved in several student organizations, but the one that made an impact on her career trajectory was her organizing with the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), a network of students that support the rights of working-class people by holding their universities accountable to ensure the human rights of all workers, including those that make college apparel. In this role, she helped lead campus actions and create space for directly impacted workers in the apparel industry to come and speak to students about the power of collective action to make critical changes in the workplace, especially around health and safety.

After college, Nicthé moved to Southern Oregon, where she became a community organizer with Unite Oregon Rogue Valley Chapter. In 2019, she went off to do internal organizing with SEIU Local 503, where she organized alongside homecare and personal support workers. She is now staff at Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, home of Safe Jobs Oregon - a COSH affiliate. NWJP is a legal non-profit that centers low-wage and immigrant workers through legal representation, policy advocacy, and organizing support. In this third area, she aims to train workers about their rights, support their leadership development, and provide them with the tools necessary to demand better working conditions in the workplace.