Section on Labor and Labor Movements Call for Awards Nominations
http://www.asanet.org/sections/labor_awards.cfm

Remaining Key Deadlines:
3/31/15: Distinguished Scholarly Article Award
4/1/15: Distinguished Student Paper Award

Brandworkers has an opening in our Program Department for a full-time Organizer

The Organization Brandworkers is a membership organization of local food production workers organizing for dignified jobs and a just food system. The popularity of local food is soaring, but the workers employed behind the scenes in food production factories are facing deplorable conditions: wage theft, discrimination, workplace injuries, and much more.
Brandworkers' mostly immigrant membership produces specialty foods, bakes artisanal bread, processes seafood, and many other products in a sprawling sector of food manufacturing companies in Brooklyn and Queens. We help members develop as social change leaders and attain the know-how to build their own life-changing campaigns for workplace justice. Our organization is developing a new model of workplace organizing based on rank & file leadership and direct action to win dignified jobs and inspire workers everywhere.
We were founded in 2007 based on the principle that workers themselves are uniquely positioned to lead dramatic change in an industry and in society.

The Candidate
Do you have conviction for helping workers lead together? Is a commitment to racial, gender, and immigrant justice central to your life?
This position is for someone who will thrive in a culture defined by accountability to workers and commitment to helping workers win. You challenge the ways things have been done before, think deeply about how the world is changing, speak up with dissenting views, and practice candor always. You relish the opportunity to build something new and substantially different than the status quo.

Job Responsibilities
The Organizer will help food-making workers build solidarity with their co-workers and workers across the local food-making industry. This position centers on connecting workers with intensive leadership development opportunities and providing them with comprehensive trainings. The key is to help workers lead together to a better job and a better food system.
• Engage mostly immigrant food-making workers in dialogue around problems they face and aspirations for the future.
• Share Brandworkers' track record for helping members achieve dramatic job improvements
and life-enhancing leadership development experiences.
• Visit with workers at their homes, on the job, and on the street to build relationships and unpack obstacles to collective action.
• Develop and deliver high-quality trainings to members with an emphasis on “train the
trainer” opportunities for members.
• Identify workers with high-leadership capacity and help workers create organizing committees.
• Track your work using Brandworkers' digital tools.
• Partner with members as they iterate toward a new and scalable model of worker organizing.
 
Your Qualifications
• You have experience in or a demonstrable interest in workplace organizing. A specific, proven alignment with working class people, people of color, indigenous people, women, LGBT people, and immigrants is a must.
• You are fluent in Spanish, and preferably in English as well.
• You are fearless, persistent, and relentless in pursuit of truth and justice.
• You've heard from others that you're a very good listener.
• You're comfortable and relish initiating conversations with total strangers.
• You get a lot of stuff done and have the mindfulness to make sure you're working on what matters most to the mission.
• You understand that workers lead at Brandworkers and that the organizer's role is to facilitate
that leadership.
• You have an essential commitment to anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-hetero sexism, among other commitments to justice and equality.
• You are comfortable setting goals, making plans, and reporting on results vs. goals.
• You are committed to experimentation and diligent about documenting lessons learned.
• You actively seek out candid feedback and actively give candid feedback to achieve excellence.
• You are comfortable using data and metrics to measure results and learn.
• You think big, you take risks, and are not afraid to fail. You actively identify problems and generate ideas especially around the disruptive force of technology.
• You are a builder, embrace opportunities to think creatively, and enjoy taking a fresh look at
problems to solve.

Send your resume and a meaningful cover letter to Brandworkers Lead Organizer, Diana Marino at dmarino@brandworkers.org.

Brandworkers strongly encourages applications from people of color, women, immigrants, indigenous people, LGBT people, and other traditionally oppressed communities.

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/advancing-worker-rights

Advancing Worker Rights Conference (April 17 - 18)
The Worker Institute at Cornell invites your participation at Advancing Worker Rights, a major conference marking the 80th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act, the 70th anniversary of the ILR School, and the 150th anniversary of Cornell University.

Register today to take advantage of our early bird registration and special discounts on travel and hotels!

The signing of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935 was a watershed moment for workers and the American labor movement. The NLRA established a legal framework to govern union recognition, collective bargaining, and collective action - and most importantly, it guaranteed the rights of workers to organize and put the federal government on record as supporting collective bargaining as a public good.

At the same time, many workers were excluded from the NLRA from the start, and in subsequent decades, the NLRA was reinterpreted and amended to make it even harder for workers to join unions or strike, and further restricting the categories of workers covered by those protections. Today, fewer workers than ever are protected under the NLRA as our economy increasingly relies on precarious, contingent, and part-time workers.

On the 80th anniversary of the NLRA, with worker rights increasingly under attack, we turn to some of the most innovative thinkers and leaders in the world of labor to address the pressing question: Where do we go from here?

We have assembled leading labor activists, policy makers, labor lawyers and academics to address pressing contemporary issues, including prospects for reform, especially to enhance collective and individual rights of workers covered by or excluded from the Act.

By convening experts spanning a broad spectrum of perspectives, we hope to spark a lively discussion that will illuminate creative solutions to the challenges faced by labor. We hope you'll join us at the Advancing Worker Rights conference on April 17 - 18 and add your voice to this critical conversation on the future of the labor movement!

Please explore our site to find information about our speakers, conference agenda and schedule, and special discounts on accommodations and travel. For a limited time only, we are offering early bird registration for just $37 - click here to register today!