Paid internships are a reality again in Congress after public shaming

The Industrial Commons (TIC) strives to create an inclusive economy based on community between employee-owned social enterprises and industrial cooperatives, creating a more democratized, worker-centric environment. Since 2015, TIC has launched five cooperative businesses, employing more than 100 workers, and is working to grow the number of businesses to 75 by 2025.

With help from national labor union Workers United, employees at Starbucks stores across the country are launching union campaigns in an effort to secure safer conditions and better pay. In all, 171 stores in 30 states have won union elections so far, and Workers United has filed to unionize at 302 stores in all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An initiative to draw more people to entry-level healthcare professions is seeing success in Ohio. A collaboration of healthcare employers is training and promoting employees to “strengthen the healthcare employee pipeline.”

Worker cooperatives offer a scalable model through which to ensure and protect the rights of home care workers. The Home Care Workers Purpose Trust, started by the Bronx-based Cooperative Home Care Associates, brings the worker co-op model to other home care programs across the country. The group, which partners with multiple worker advocacy organizations, most recently began a joint venture to serve southern Washington state.

To address Mississippi's teacher shortage, a nonprofit has started to look to the source of the problem--many would-be teachers are repeatedly failing to pass the teacher ceritifcation exam. Coupled with several new state policies, Regional Initiatives for Sustainable Education is offering tutoring and direction to candidates.

The night shift janitor is an easy target. Working in isolation, cleaners across the country say they have been harassed, assaulted and raped by supervisors and co-workers while tidying office buildings, shopping malls and universities, as our investigation exposed.