Washington Post hires Gurley to cover labor

by Chris Roush · June 21, 2022

Lauren Gurley

Washington Post business editor Lori Montgomery, economics editor Damian Paletta and deputy economics editor Jen Liberto sent out the following on Tuesday:

We’re excited to announce that Lauren Kaori Gurley is joining the economics team as The Post’s labor reporter.

Lauren joins us from Vice’s Motherboard, where she has covered labor since 2019, producing groundbreaking journalism about the conditions that have spurred a huge increase in organizing at some of the country’s largest employers. During the pandemic, Lauren was the first to cover walkouts at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart and Target, a rebellion by frontline workers that soon became national news. Among her many scoops were stories revealing that Amazon had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency [vice.com] to spy on its warehouse workers, that the Teamsters chose Amazon Prime Day to launch a national campaign to unionize the mega-retailer [vice.com], and that Amazon delivery drivers were taking photos of their pee bottles [vice.com] to dispute the company’s claim that it didn’t deny them time to take bathroom breaks. Lauren also was among the first to write about a union drive in Staten Island [vice.com], where Amazon warehouse workers in April voted to form the first union in company history.

Before Vice, Lauren worked as a reporter-researcher at the New Republic. Her reporting also has been featured by ProPublica, NPR, the New York Review of Books, the American Prospect and In These Times. Apropos for a labor reporter, her first jobs included gallery guard, waitress and barista.
A native of Southern California, Lauren graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in comparative literature. She also holds a master’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies from New York University. She lives in Brooklyn with her outspoken terrier, Pacho, but they both look forward to starting a new chapter in Washington.