Celebrating 5 Years of WILL Empower Programming |  | |
This Women’s History Month the power of WILL Empower was on full display as we celebrated our first five years! On March 11th we welcomed the newest cohort of Emerging Leaders into our growing WE network with a big event to close out their in-person retreat. The awards ceremony was bursting with joy; from dynamic speakers like AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer April Verrett, JWJ Executive Director Erica Smiley, and Washington State Labor Council President April Sims to the many inspiring messages of encouragement from representatives across all WE programs.
We honored Jamila Allen with the 2023 Edna Berger Young Courageous Leader Award. Jeanne Wardford (Kellogg Foundation) presented the award to Allen, a fierce worker leader who organized the Union of Southern Service Workers (an SEIU Fight For Fifteen affiliate) in North Carolina. A few of the 2021 WILL Empower Awardees: Angeles Solis (Make the Road NY), Erica Iheme (Jobs to Move America), Cherika Carter (WSLC), and Marshé Doss (UTLA Youth Supporter) welcomed Allen into the WE network. This much needed reunion for Apprentices, Emergers, and Executive cohort members was elevated by DJ Searchlight (aka Tiffany Flowers), who made sure that our Advisory Council, Mentors, core funders/sponsors, and many other supporters who traveled to Rutgers (New Jersey) from Kansas, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Washington State and even Belgium spent time celebrating on the dance floor. We witnessed our WE network thriving, and WE have only just begun!
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How to Negotiate - Bargaining for the Common Good Style! 📢
Over 400 union members came together on March 9th for the “Negotiating, BCG Style” webinar to build strategies for Bargaining for the Common Good! Leaders joined from over 50 different unions, with folks joining from all over the country and beyond, including delegations from Nigeria and Mexico. This gathering lifted up key lessons from experienced organizers and negotiators across the country, along with space to strategize for every local who joined. Our panel included Rob Baril from SEIU District 1199 New England, Kavitha Iyengar from UAW Local 2865, UC Student-Workers Union. Jackson Potter from the Chicago Teachers Union, and Brahim Kone from SEIU Local 26. Nell Geiser from CWA and the BCG Advisory Committee emceed the packed hour and half. If you attended, please fill out a survey and stay tuned for a follow up training to put these key lessons into action!
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Please join us in welcoming Kasi Farrar and Ardra Manasi to the CIWO family! | |
Kasi Farrar joins CIWO as the Director of Leadership and Organizational Change Programs, where she will be spearheading new initiatives for Build the Bench and WILL Empower. Kasi joins us from the West Coast, where she was the first Director of Racial and Gender Justice at the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, building on her nearly 20 years of experience in local, regional, national, and international labor organizing and championing equity. | |  |
Ardra Manasi joins CIWO as the Global Program Manager, where she will support and lead the Transformative Global Leadership Program. Previously, Ardra worked at the Rutgers Center for Women’s Global Leadership where she focused on digital communications, building coalitions among organizations working with informal women workers, and advocacy around ILO Convention 190, the first international treaty to address violence and harassment in the world of work. | | |
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Build the Bench Virtual Gathering with Special Guest Maurice Mitchell
On March 1st, Build the Bench hosted Maurice Mitchell, the National Director of the Working Families Party, to have a conversation about his article "Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis," which addresses many of the issues our Build the Bench leaders are grappling with. Over 60 participants gathered to discuss how leadership teams across our Build the Bench network are utilizing this article for internal conversations to build strategies to strengthen and focus their organizations. We really appreciated sharing space with Maurice and look forward to continuing this vital conversation within Build the Bench.
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Always Essential Fellows Share Remarkable Stories |  | |
The Always Essential (AE) Fellowship closed on February 21st with an incredible story slam featuring the 2022-2023 fellows. Essential workers from across the country shared 5 minute stories about a moment that made them who they are in front of a live zoom audience of supporters from their organizations, fellows from previous cohorts, and their friends & family. To prepare for the story slam, fellows were trained by Javier Morillo (AE Fellowship Lead Trainer, Moth Story Teller, and previous President of SEIU Local 26) over two class sessions on ways to identify and share their story. All fellows were offered 1:1 and group coaching after those two class sessions to talk through their story with trainers.
The story slam and storytelling class sessions are a core piece of the Always Essential Fellowship curriculum because of our belief that the better that we are at telling our own stories - the better we are at listening to other people's stories. Fellows are also organizers who engage with their coworkers to make changes in their workplaces that further economic, gender, racial, and/or climate justice. Training fellows on identifying their own moments of power can only support these organizing efforts to help essential workers across the country find their power too.
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Bargaining for the Common Good and National Education Association
Leadership Summit
NEA leaders from across the country came together for a BCG and NEA Leadership Summit workshop to build power Bargaining for the Common Good! NEA’s National Senior Bargaining Specialist Brian Beallor and BCG Education Director Sandra Lane (in the top photo to the right) led this training and Portland Association of Teachers president Angela Bonilla shared updates and key lessons from their contract negotiations. 50 union leaders from schools across the country strategized around what changes students, parents, and educators want to see in our communities, and how to win them with Bargaining for the Common Good campaigns.
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Center for Innovation in Worker Organization
School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
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