Building Worker Power Through Workforce Development final 10-4-2024 - Flipbook - Page 3
I NTRODUCTI ON
Over the last 50 years a deep imbalance has been created in the labor
market, with control over hiring practices, pay, and working conditions in
our economy overwhelmingly concentrated in large corporations.
Corporations typically see maximizing profit as their primary obligation
to shareholders and are experimenting with new approaches to reduce the
cost of labor. Intended or not, these new approaches almost always come
at the expense of workers and their families. Opaque and unfair hiring
processes, poor health coverage, unstable scheduling practices, unsafe
and unhealthy working conditions, and unlivable wages are all realities of
today’s job market that stand in the way of worker success and wellbeing.
Beyond the impact on individual workers, this trend also
means training programs have fewer and fewer options
to connect students with the quality of jobs they need to
sustain themselves and their families. In this way, the ability of a workforce development sector to achieve successful workforce outcomes is heavily in昀氀uenced by
employer practices and the resulting quality of jobs available in the communities they serve.
Workforce programs are not powerless to 昀椀ght these
trends—and conversations around job quality are starting to occur in some community and community-college-based workforce development systems. Even still,
only a minority of training providers are taking active
steps to improve job quality in their local communities.
At the same time, in the same communities, worker organizations such as worker centers and labor unions are
actively educating and organizing workers in low-wage
industries to push back against worsening job standards.
Constituents of these organizing groups often represent
the most systematically excluded workers in those communities, populations that workforce programs seek to
serve. Worker organizations are well-situated to integrate workforce development work with organizing campaigns and policy initiatives that increase protections for
workers, expand access to bene昀椀cial programs and lead
to an increase in quality jobs - whether through “know
your rights” trainings, unionization drives or taking on bad
actor employers. Yet aside from minimal pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship relationships, little collaboration
exists between worker-organizing groups and workforce
development providers.
Educating workforce training students about their labor
protections and training them in organizing and policy
work can concurrently tackle the issues of increasing
access to workforce development programs for marginalized communities, while also creating quality jobs in the
labor market.
Through this project ReWork the Bay and our partners
have planted the seeds for a new approach to workforce
development that not only provides participants the skills
to do a job, but the mindset and con昀椀dence to be a leader.
Photo credit: North Bay Jobs With Justice
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B U I L D I N G W O R K E R P O W E R T H RO U G H W O R K FO RC E D E V E LO P M E N T
