David B. Reynolds

David Reynolds is an author, activist, and researcher based in southeast Michigan.

Reynolds has a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He helps develop leadership skills among working adults at the Center for Labor and Community Studies, University of Michigan. He also teaches State and Local Government at Eastern Michigan University. His latest book, edited with Louise Simmons, examines the state of the art in building regional progressive power: Igniting Justice and Progressive Power: The Partnership for Working Families Cities (Routlege, 2021).

Prior books include A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement (Cornell University Press), Partnership for Change: Unions and Community Coalitions for Economic Justice (M.E. Sharpe) and Taking the High Road: Communities Organize for Economic Change (2002, M.E. Sharpe). For twenty years he has led a research network that works with the national AFL-CIO to document the regional and state labor movement innovations that, among other things, have produced many of the Partnership for Working Families affiliates.

Reynolds has not simply studied progressive power-building but led local and regional efforts. He is a founder and serves on the board of Doing Development Differently in Metro Detroit (D4) – a labor-community coalition aimed at maximizing worker and community benefits from current and future investments in the metropolitan area. He helped facilitate and supported with research over a dozen successful living wage efforts in south-east Michigan. In his hometown he leads Rising for Economic Democracy in Ypsilanti, which in 2019 passed a Community Benefits Ordinance that increases community participation in local economic development. He currently is helping grow broad-based open roundtable to build greater community and communication among progressive groups and individuals in Washtenaw County