Co-sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and the UIC Center for Urban Economic Development, this event features the nation’s leading workers’ rights and economic justice advocates as we celebrate the 2021 launch of the The Worker Center Library, a living archive mapping the past and future of the workers’ rights movement.
Watch these leaders reflect on the gains made in building worker power, the challenges and opportunities ahead to build a world with workers at the center.
Full video below:
PROGRAM:
Panel 1: The Moment is Now: Investing in the Labor Movement of the Future
Sarita Gupta, Ford Foundation
Laine Romero-Alston, Open Society Foundations
Moderator: Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
Panel 2: Looking Back to Look Forward: Building Workers’ Collective Power (video timecode: 00:12:02)
Sarita Gupta, Ford Foundation
Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Pablo Alvarado, National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, UCLA Labor Center/National Black Worker Center
Moderator: Laine Romero-Alston, Open Society Foundations
Panel 3: New Terrains of Worker Organizing (video timecode: 00:37:16)
Erica Smiley, National Jobs with Justice
Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Pablo Alvarado, National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Jennifer Rosenbaum, Global Labor Justice
Andrea Dehlendorf, United for Respect
Sekou Siby, Restaurant Opportunity Centers United
Moderator: Laine Romero-Alston, Open Society Foundations
Panel 4: Seizing the Moment: New Opportunities for Workers’ Rights (video timecode: 01:12:28)
Saket Soni, Resilience Force
Saru Jayaraman, One Fair Wage
Shanika Houlder White, National Black Worker Centers
Michelle Miller, Coworker
Moderator: Laine Romero-Alston, Open Society Foundations
Special thanks to Anastancia Cuna, a member leader with NDWA/We Dream in Black and a Board Member of Matahari Women’s Worker Center in Boston, and Los Jornaleros Del Norte. Their music video for “El Cochinito,” a tribute to day laborers, will be released on Labor Day via the band’s website here.
Read more about Worker Centers in our Alt-Labor Chronicles series here.
Browse all our videos and subscribe to the Prospect‘s YouTube channel here.