An Appalachian model for building place-based community wealth

Fight Back, Inc. is a local community-based organization that worked to get construction jobs for Blacks, Spanish-surnamed, and other minorities in New York City over the years. The organization has been very effective in integrating the skilled and construction trades and ensuring workers of color have equal opportunity and has been replicated in other cities like Seattle and Detroit.

Unit of Work, an organization backed by venture capital, helps unions organize and win contracts. Organizers provide free consulting to groups of workers forming unions within their own workplaces. Once a contract is in place, members of the new union can decide to pay Unit of Work a monthly fee — like traditional union dues — to keep providing support.

Paying Congressional interns gives lower income students a chance to engage with the legislative process. By bringing increased attention to the lack of paid internships on Capitol Hill, the nonprofit, Pay Our Interns, succeed in pressuring Congress to allocate funds for intern stipends. The funding makes opportunities on the Hill more accessible to those who cannot rely on family financial support to accept an unpaid internship.

After years of banning labor unions in Bangladesh, garment workers unionized to fight for higher wages and safer working conditions. For women, this isn't traditionally a space they were welcomed in, but now they’re holding their own meetings to ensure women’s safety is ensured on the job.

After a major fire, labor standards in Bangladesh are improving, but workers must have a voice if these changes are to be sustainable.

Siragugal Bricks is a community-owned brick kiln operated by rescued bonded laborers, aiming to rehabilitate and empower them to explore business endeavors and find more sustainable, safer sources of income. Since April 2022, 100 families have worked for Siragugal and local government organizations have helped obtain funding and supplies to facilitate Siragugal’s operations, such as power supplies, a work shed and a borehole for water.

Deliveristas Unidos started as a WhatsApp group for local delivery workers to connect, but over time it turned into a mobilized organization of thousands of delivery workers ready to take to the streets to protect their rights as workers. Through their organizing, the group managed to get a legislative package passed that enacted several laws that guaranteed their rights and protections, including access to bathrooms in restaurants across the city, transparent communication with delivery apps about tips, as well as hourly pay.

After enduring unfair working conditions, an organizing committee at a Starbucks in Tennessee, later dubbed the Memphis Seven, became the first of the state to attempt, and succeed, to unionize with help from Starbucks Workers United. Their work inspired a nationwide movement, and now over 250 Starbucks are unionized.

The Equal Justice Center helps people who have experienced issues in the workplace like wage theft, labor trafficking and discrimination get justice against their employers.

Liberty Cleaners co-created a curriculum to train immigrant women workers about tech education, green cleaning, and workers’ rights. As the first women-led workers’ hub in the country, the group is organizing and enabling its members with skills that can ensure they receive the fair wages, opportunities, and respect they deserve but are often denied.