February 2024
ESSENTIAL WORKER STORY SLAM: THE POWER OF STORY-TELLING AS A MOBILIZING TOOL
February 27th, 6:00-8:00pm ET
When workers are supported in crafting their own stories, they can: 1) share their why for who they are and how they came to this work, and 2) better support other workers in unearthing their own stories. Encouraging story-telling and incorporating it into a broader campaign strategy has shown to be a powerful tool for organizing. Join the organizers & facilitators of the Always Essential Fellowship program (Javier Morillo, Mara Ventura, Valeria Trevino, & MaryGrace DiMaria) and graduated Always Essential Fellows to discuss the importance of storytelling as strategy and to hear the stories that fellow’s created through the AE program. Spanish/English live interpretation will be available.
Background on the Always Essential Fellowship:
The Always Essential Fellowship is a partnership between the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) & United for Respect. The goal of the Always Essential Fellowship is to expose and challenge essential worker leaders to learn new skills, tools, and power analyses that allow them to deepen their understanding of their roles in the larger labor movement and connect with one another to win campaigns that make concrete improvements in the lives of all essential workers. Class sessions are participatory and call on fellows to bring in their lived experiences organizing their coworkers into a curriculum on the basics of organizing, bargaining, story-telling, and more!
Compartiendo Historias con Trabajadores Esenciales: el poder de la narración de historias como herramienta movilizadora
27 de febrero, 6:00-8:00pm ET
Poesía informal por trabajadores esenciales: el poder de contar historias como una herramienta de movilización Cuando se apoya a los trabajadores en la elaboración de sus propias historias, ellos pueden: 1) compartir el por qué de quiénes son y cómo llegaron a este trabajo, y 2) apoyar mejor a otros trabajadores para que descubran sus propias historias. Fomentar la narración de historias e incorporarla a una estrategia de campaña más amplia ha demostrado ser una herramienta poderosa para la organización. Únase a los organizadores y facilitadores del programa Always Essential Fellowship (Javier Morillo, Mara Ventura, Valeria Treviño y MaryGrace DiMaria) y a los becarios graduados de Always Essential para discutir la importancia de contar historias como estrategia y escuchar las historias que los becarios crearon a través del programa AE. Habrá interpretación en vivo disponible en español e inglés.
TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICES TO ENGAGE GLOBAL WOMEN LEADERS
February 29th, 8:00-9:30am ET
Since December 2019, the CIWO team has partnered with the Labour Research Service to: 1) identify and describe recent transformative practices and potential new approaches in global labor leadership development, networking, and movement building –with particular attention to race and gender – in labor, racial, and economic justice movements, and 2) to bring together national and global leaders with activists from the labor movement to learn about and share these practices and experimental approaches to push boundaries even further to determine ways to better support their leadership.
Through an endless set of pivots - both in response to global events (including the COVID-19 pandemic) and learnings from conversations with leaders - a feminist praxis was developed to effectively engage women labor leaders from across the globe. Join us for a conversation on February 29th to discuss our approach to this work, the lessons we learned, and what’s next for networking women leaders from across the globe.
Prácticas transformativas para involucrar a las mujeres líderes globales
29 de febrero, de 8:00 a 9:30am, hora del este
Desde diciembre de 2019, el equipo de CIWO se ha asociado con el Servicio de Investigaciones Sindicales para hacer lo siguiente: 1) Identificar y describir cualquier práctica transformativa reciente y posibles nuevos enfoques en el desarrollo de liderazgo sindical a nivel mundial, establecer nuevas relaciones y conexiones, y fortalecimiento de movimientos: todo esto con atención particular a la raza y el género, en los movimientos sindicales, raciales y de justicia económica; y 2) para reunir a líderes nacionales y globales con les activistas del movimiento de trabajo para aprender acerca de estas prácticas y enfoques experimentales y compartirlos para impulsar los límites aún más lejos para determinar formas de apoyar su liderazgo de la mejor manera.
A través de un conjunto interminable de giros: tanto en respuesta a eventos globales (incluyendo la pandemia de COVID-19) y los aprendizajes de las conversaciones con líderes, se desarrolló una práctica feminista para involucrar de manera efectiva a las mujeres líderes en el movimiento sindical de alrededor del mundo. Únete a nosotres para una conversación el 29 de febrero para discutir la manera como abordamos este trabajo, las lecciones aprendidas, y qué es lo siguiente para las mujeres líderes que están estableciendo nuevas relaciones y conexiones de alrededor del mundo.
March 2024
AMAZON WAREHOUSES AND FULFILLMENT CENTERS: CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF WORKER CONTROL
March 7th, 12:00-1:30PM ET
Join us for a webinar featuring the research Amazon Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers : Contemporary Forms of Worker Control on Thursday, March 7th from 12-1:30 PM ET. This webinar will discuss the policing & surveillance workers endure in Amazon facilities,and how researchers built relationships with worker leaders, unions, and community organizations to shed light on these conditions. This webinar will bring together researchers Dr. Tamara Lee (Rutgers University) & Dr. Maite Tapia (Michigan State University) who are leading this work, along with Amazon worker leaders, and other supporters of this research. Audience members will have an opportunity to ask questions following the panelists’ discussion.
Minnesota Community and Labor Escalation - January 9
January 9th, 5PM CT/6PM ET
Register here.
This webinar is an incredible opportunity to learn from Minnesota organizers about how they aligned contracts and formed authentic connections between labor and community to make a mass March 2024 strike possible. Join us on January 9th at 5PM CT to learn from these innovative leaders about the history that made this possible and what’s next. You don’t want to miss this. Panelists include:
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Greg Nammacher, President of SEIU Local 26
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Jennifer Arnold, Co-Director of Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia
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Veronica Mendez Moore, Co-Director of CTUL
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Marcia Howard, First Vice President of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Educational Support Professionals
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JaNaé Bates, Director of Communications of ISAIAH
Co-Directors Building the Bench - January 16
January 16th, 11:00AM-1:00PM ET
Co-hosted by the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) Workers Innovating New Strategies (WINS) Series and CIWO’s Build the Bench program, this virtual event focused on co-leadership models in the worker justice movement. Our objectives:
- Get smarter with others faster to win bigger: We will explore opportunities, challenges and story sharing with current and former Co-Directors, making sure we touch on the experience of people in #2 roles who both support co-director models and in some organizations, work as co-deputy directors themselves.
- Build and deepen relationships: We also have folks who are still skeptical of the co-director model, so we want to keep it real and stay focused on building healthy, resilient organizations, who may or may not see co-directorship as part of their journey.
- Highlight innovations that are happening in the worker justice movement that increase worker organization’s capacity - both the challenges and opportunities. have an ability for those in those positions to ask questions about this.
- Connect innovative strategies that are being used and discuss how they tangibly increase worker power in the movement through healthier, more sustainable organizations. AKA - co-directorships seem to be working and are an innovation - how does that innovation lead to more worker power in the WJ mvmt?
Co-Directors, movement leaders and organizers from across the country heard from a panel of the following leaders:
- Javier Valdés, former Co-Director of Make the Road NY
- Deb Axt, former Co-Director of Make the Road NY
- Candace Johnson, Deputy Director for Organizational Strength of Jobs with Justice
- Mackenzie Baris, Deputy Director of Program & Base Building Jobs with Justice
- Denise Diaz, Deputy Director for Institutional Advancement of Jobs with Justice
Joined by CIWO directors Dr. Sheri Davis (Associate Director of CIWO and Co-Director of WILL Empower), Marilyn Sneiderman (Executive Director of CIWO and Rutgers Distinguished Professor), MaryGrace DiMaria (Director of Innovative Programs) and Kasi Perreira (Director of Leadership and Organizational Change), panelists and participants shared the challenges and opportunities of co-leadership models, including how they utilized this leadership structure to share and build power with their base of working class people.
If you would like to continue the conversation with CIWO, please review the video recording, slide presentation and check out our Co-Directorships Resource Guide linked here. Questions? Contact ciwo@smlr.rutgers.edu.
Whole Worker Leadership Development for Domestic Workers in Latin America & the Caribbean - January 25
January 25th, 12:00pm-1:30PM ET
The Leadership, Unity, Renovation, & Amplification Program (LUNA) is a one-year leadership development program for domestic worker leaders in Latin America & the Caribbean. The LUNA program combines political education, training in organizing strategies & building new models of leadership, and somatics to provide comprehensive support to domestic worker leaders. Join CIWO Innovative Fellow & General Secretary of the International Domestic Worker Federation (IDWF), Adriana Paz Ramírez, & graduates of the LUNA program for a discussion on how this approach to leadership development connects the personal to the political, heals traumatic wounds, and builds intergenerational leadership. Spanish/English live interpretation will be available.
DESARROLLO INTEGRAL DEL LIDERAZGO DE LOS TRABAJADORES DEL HOGAR EN AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE
25 de enero, 12:00pm-1:30PM ET
El Programa de Liderazgo, Unidad, Renovación y Amplificación (LUNA, por sus siglas en inglés) es un programa de desarrollo de liderazgo de un año de duración para líderes de trabajadoras del hogar en América Latina y el Caribe. El programa LUNA combina la educación política, la capacitación en estrategias de organización y la construcción de nuevos modelos de liderazgo, así como la somática para brindar apoyo integral a los líderes de las trabajadoras del hogar. Únase a Adriana Paz Ramírez, Innovadora Becaria de CIWO y Secretaria General de la Federación Internacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar (FITH), y a los graduados del programa LUNA para una discusión sobre cómo este enfoque para el desarrollo del liderazgo conecta lo personal con lo político, curas heridas traumáticas y construye un liderazgo intergeneracional. Habrá interpretación en vivo disponible en español e inglés.
