WILL Empower hosted the first Womxn’s Labor Leadership Symposium & Awards on September 30 and October 1, 2021. Designed specifically for womxn in worker justice movements, the symposium included plenaries, workshops, and facilitated conversations with veteran leaders, new leaders, and new worker leaders and activists. Reaching more than 350 leaders in the worker justice movement, the Symposium featured the testimony and narrative of more than 60 leaders across the country, including Lauren Jacobs of Power Switch Action; Veronica Mendez-Moore of Centro Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha; Sara Steffens of Communications Workers; Sarita Gupta of the Ford Foundation, Stacy Davis-Gates of the Chicago Teachers Union; and Tanya Wallace-Gobern of the National Black Worker Center. Liz Shuler, Preisident of the AFL-CIO; Princess Moss, Secretary Treasurer of NEA; and Cindy Estrada, Executive VP of UAW offered inspiring remarks during the Symposium. See the links below to access video highlights, an event recap, and a flip book with key learnings and resources.
WILL Empower identifies, convenes, develops, and nurtures a new generation of women labor leaders, employing a broad, multi-pronged approach to engage women on multiple levels and through interwoven programs including: apprenticeships, executive and emerging cohorts, and fellowships. A national program, WILL Empower is the legacy project of the Berger-Marks Foundation and is jointly housed at Rutgers’ Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) in the School of Management and Labor Relations and Georgetown’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.
Strategies and Reflections from the Womxn’s Labor Leadership Symposium
> Read the blog post recapping the Symposium
Symposium Flip Book
Following the event, the CIWO team created a flip book to explore the most powerful moments of the symposium. Included in the flip book are key learnings from both days, impactful quotes and dialogues, and resources shared throughout the event that highlight movement leaders and artists.
