We should take our seats. We don't want to keep our online audience waiting. All right, everybody.  All right, good morning, good morning. All right, good morning, everyone. Good morning. Good morning, good morning. Good morning and welcome, welcome to New America and welcome to the launch of the Good Jobs Collaborative. Yes, couldn't be more thrilled to be here this morning. My name is Mary Alice McCarthy. I'm a senior director here at New America and I run our center on education and labor. And we're just so excited to have you here with us today. Thank you to those of us, to those of you in the room. We've got a full room and thanks to all of you who are joining us online. Again, we've got 400 registrants for this event. We've just been thrilled by the turnout and thrilled to know that so many people share our concerns around workforce development, policy and practice. So we're here today to launch the Good Jobs Collaborative. You're going to hear a lot about the collaborative over the next 90 minutes, but just quickly, we are a coalition of labor unions, worker advocates, and policy and research centers that have come together around the need for a new vision for workforce development policy and practice. Like many of you, I'm guessing, we believe that our workforce development system is falling short on meeting the needs of workers and that that's due in large part to how the system is designed and how little space the system creates for worker voice or opportunities to build worker power. You know, according to the Brookings Institution, 44% of American workers earn low hourly wages, just a little over $10 an hour. According to the Pew Research Center, less than a third of workers who lose their jobs are able to access unemployment insurance. And according to the Economic Policy Institute, in 2022, over 60% of low wage workers did not have a single sick leave day, could not take a single day off of sick leave. Now, those are some pretty grim statistics. They're not new. But what we want to really focus on is the fact that our workforce development system does nothing to disrupt or reverse those trends towards poor job quality, towards low wages, towards precarity, towards lots of instability in our labor market. And to the contrary, because of the way the system is designed, it's more likely actually to even reinforce those trends than disrupt them, right? And that's a problem and that needs to change. At the center of our good jobs collaborative vision for workforce development and of the future policies that we are hope to create are principles that center the needs of workers for good jobs that enable them and their families to thrive. So today, you're going to hear from people and organizations that don't normally weigh in on workforce development policy. We believe our good jobs collaborative is a first of its kind in terms of workforce development coalitions because it includes labor leaders and worker advocates and experts in the labor and employment policy space. And they're going to share their perspectives both on what workers really need when it comes to workforce development and other policies. And they're also going to share why they've decided it's time to get involved. You're also going to hear about some concrete examples of how to deliver worker centered workforce development. And you'll meet folks who lead that work and people who have participated in programs that our worker led. So it is a packed agenda. We've been very ambitious because we have a lot to say and a lot to share. So please stick with us. And for those of you who are here in the room, we have a delicious lunch plan for you afterwards. And for those of you who are online, please go and enjoy a delicious lunch right after we're done. But before I hand over the mic, I do want to say a few thank yous. First, a big thank you to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for their generous support and their patience with this work. Our coalition building is hard work and you can't rush it. Second, thanks to all the folks who we've engaged over the last year and a half to learn about what's happening with workers on the ground, to learn about what worker advocates need, to learn about a new vision for workforce development. Third, thanks to all of the collaborative members, all 13 organizations, I would list it out, but that would get pretty boring so I will not do that. But thanks to everybody from all of the organizations, the 13 organizations that have been at this for a year and a half generally in volunteer time, coming to meetings, coming to conversations continuing this work. We made it here today and I'm just deeply grateful to all of you and I think we're deeply grateful all to one another. It has truly been a collaborative effort. And finally, thanks to all of you who are listening and lending us your ears today. We look forward to this conversation and hopefully many more in the future. So with that, let me hand the mic over to my friend and colleague, Teo Filo Reyes, the chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunity Centers United. Teo? Thank you, Mary Alice.  So prior to joining this group, Brock had not been engaged in workforce development policy discussions, right? I hadn't even actually entered my mind that we should be seeing it as a policy priority for our work. It's not because the work's not important. Worker development is a very important part of our program work. It's just that the system didn't really include a space for worker advocates or workers to have a voice. I've been speaking to worker advocates around the country. Most don't know what we OO is and I've even spoken to some people at the DOL who don't know what we OO is, right? And so that's a problem. So we joined this conversation. I think Emily Andrews here at Class invited me and I was thrilled to be able to join a lot of curiosity. I wanted to learn how to engage, how to make the system work for workers. So over a series of listening sessions that we held in Atlanta, in Chicago, in Los Angeles, and then outreach to workers and organizations across the country, we've come forward with a set of principles to advance and create a workforce development system that prioritizes the needs of workers and not solely the needs of employers, right? This is really what we're looking at our purpose. It's a building new narrative to create a workforce development system that is built for workers' needs. And to move that forward, we have a series of four principles that are very near and dear to my heart. The first one is put workers first and build worker power. Iraq, we transformed our mission five years ago from one of advocacy to one of building worker power in order to transform the restaurant industry. Through the input of thousands of workers, we put forward a vision for the future of the industry built on principles of our restaurant workers' bill of rights, and that includes thriving wages, time for healing and rest, safe and secure workplaces, bodily autonomy, and participation in governance. But we understand that the law is a parchment barrier. So we've also made it a priority to support and educate workers on how to exercise these rights and especially the right to form a union so they can have a voice on the job. That for us is a key element of our work is ensuring that union density in restaurants increases around the country so that one union seats a reality that's feasible and that we can put a lot of our principles of the worker bill of rights into practice. And we are thrilled to have the megaphone of the Good Jobs Collaborative to help advance these principles in order to build worker power. The second principle is to combat the legacy, current conditions, and ongoing impact of structural racism and sexism within our labor market. The restaurant industries are now in for low wages and labor law violations, right? It has the highest rates of wage theft according to the Economic Policy Institute and highest rates of sexual harassment according to analysis by the Center for American Progress. But we know at least 20% of the jobs in the industry are good jobs that provide enough to support a family. And we get up every day to work to grow that percentage. But I can tell you that raising wages is not enough, all right? I don't know how many people know. Actually, I expect most of you here to know that there's a big color line between front and back of the house. You have workers of color in the back, white workers in the front of the house, and there's disparity in wages. Bartenders, for example, black workers make up 12% of the industry, but only 5% of bartenders, and that's one of the highest paying occupations in front of the house. What you might not know is that there's a huge gender disparity. Women make up 55% of the industry overall. They're a majority of the industry. Nationally, the average wage is $15.45 an hour. But you go to San Francisco or New York, where the average wage is $19.90 or $20 an hour. And women then make 37% and 38% of the workforce. So as wages increase, opportunities for women decrease, right? So that's something that's untenable. Our culinary hospitality opportunities for workers or our child program seeks to professionalize the industry, create career ladders, and reduce historic inequities as we help place graduates into high-road employers. The third principle is raise the floor on all jobs for all workers. Restaurant workers from around the country joined us to create a vision for the future of the industry that's grounded in thriving wages free to where they can be free to be themselves without fear of discrimination and unnecessary hazards. With time to rest, including vacation with friends and family, that's something we heard a lot. Not just paid sick days, but actually time to rest with friends and family. As well as grounded in the fact that they have a say in their workplace. So we raise the floor for all workers through our efforts to advance the restaurant worker bill of rights, through our concerted efforts to educate workers on how they can form a union and through our child program. The Good Jobs Collaborative is a new and powerful megaphone that will help us meet these goals through lifting up the principles and vision of a workforce development system grounded in the needs of workers. And finally, we want to connect people to Good Jobs. Our child program exists entirely outside of the WIOA system. We've graduated about 5,000 workers through that process and we've helped people move into high-road employment. But in our industry, most worker investment boards are dominated by restaurant trade groups like the National Trade Association that cater to the needs of employers and when I've tried to speak to them, they tell us, well, these employers need to sign off on any program in order for us to sign off on your work. By focusing on placements with high-road employers, we're creating a market-done city to expand both demand and supply of high-road jobs. So that's really key. We're working hard. We are going to partner with WIOA with different worker investment boards to increase our impact. By an order of magnitude, this is within the next five years to train 50,000 workers. But it's an extremely complicated process. Many CBOs can even get these worker investment boards to answer their calls. So the system needs to contemplate worker needs at its core so that organizations that are focused on worker rights really have a voice in the system and workers are a core to the system as a tool to empower their lives. We currently lack these opportunities. Our efforts with the Good Jobs Collaborative, we expect to increase that impact tenfold as well. I don't see why we can't be training 500,000 workers that really then dramatically transform this industry of 13 million people. Thank you. Now, let me welcome some of our partners in this effort up to the stage that are going to help develop the conversation further. So please, Leslie Frayn, Executive Vice President of SCIU. And congratulations to Workers United on recent advancements at Starbucks. Very exciting. Denise Diaz, Deputy Director of Jobs with Justice. Another fantastic organization focused on innovative strategies for building worker power. And Indy Varduta Gupta, President of Center for Law and Social Policy, which has been the leading advocate for policies to support workers. Thank you so much. Thank you, Teo. Thank you, Mary Alice. We've got a lot to cover, so we're going to jump right in. And you can look folks up to learn more about their backgrounds. But we're going to start with a video. Is it Tito? No video? No video. Okay, sorry. So no video. So let's just jump in then. Leslie, you sort of heard a bit about the premise and origin story of what would be a super powerful good jobs collaborative. So when we think about this idea that we have a good jobs crisis, what does that mean to you? And what do you think of as the keys to creating good jobs? Thanks. Well, first I want to start by thanking New America for hosting us, the good jobs collaborative, Mary Alice, and I have a fellow, it's wonderful to be here. The thing that actually first attracted me to the good jobs collaborative is the name. Why pick that name? And for me, I am so tired of hearing people talk about the workforce crisis. Workforce is what employers need. Good jobs are what workers need. And if we are serious about centering workers in this conversation, we need to start by thinking about good jobs and what create them and what creates them. And the stuff, it really isn't rocket science. It really is four things that make for good jobs. It's fair compensation and that includes wages, it also includes benefits, health care, retirement, time off. It's safe working conditions and that includes working conditions that protect both the physical and emotional health of the workers who fill those jobs. It's about rewarding work so that folks feel that the work that they do is valuable and that includes a path to advance themselves in their careers so that they can develop the opportunity to do work that they find even more rewarding over time. And finally, it includes as Teo spoke to, a path to union because at the end of the day workers need to have a voice and decisions that affect them at work and that voice is, while individual workers can have a voice, that voice is only heard when it has the power that comes from workers joining together and acting collectively. And so those are really the four key things. And the reality is that most jobs, and this is especially true of jobs where women and people of color are concentrated, flunk the test of one or more of those indicators. You know, if you start with wages and working at the federal minimum wage, I would have to work 252 hours in a week just to meet the minimum subsistence level for a single mom with two kids. And in addition to being mathematically impossible to work 252 hours in one week, that would require working six full-time jobs. But even for higher paid jobs where economic survival is less of an issue, the reality is that jobs are grueling and that what we are seeing more and more is just a high rate of churn where people exit the jobs because either the compensation isn't adequate, they don't feel safe, they don't feel valued, or they're just sick and tired of having no voice in the decisions that affect them. And so if we are going to address the jobs crisis in a worker-centered way, we need to start with those four considerations. And I think that it's going to take both political power and worker power in order to do that. Can you say a little bit more about what that worker power looks like that's needed to build that sort of system and how we build that worker power? Sure. For workers to be able to make the kind of systemic changes that are needed in order to confront the forces of corporate greed and the forces of structural racism, which are the two intersecting forces that combine and conspire to prevent working people from making progress, particularly workers of color, but all workers, it is going to take the ability for workers to join unions. There's just no other force in our society through which workers can exercise the cloud that's necessary. Unfortunately, we hear a lot about last year it was Union Summer and then it became Union Season. And last year was actually a pretty amazing year if you look at the level of strike activity in this country. But while that is exciting and inspiring, the numbers that I always look first to are not the strike numbers but the organizing numbers. Because as long as only 6% of private sector workers in this country have unions, there is a fairly low ceiling on the amount of power that we can build. And the reality is that the path to union is blocked for the majority of workers in this country for a number of reasons. And the first is that many workers are simply excluded from legal protections when it comes to union rights and that's true of domestic workers, that's true of agricultural workers, that's true in many red states, in most red states for public workers and that's true for the increasing percentage of workers who work in the gig economy and get classified as independent contractors, which is largely a way of making sure that they don't have any rights. And so as long as and it is worth noting that all of those categories that I just described are places where workers of color and in many cases women workers are concentrated. And as long as those folks are excluded from the right to have unions, the fact that they are excluded from the right to have unions actually lowers the ceiling on the power that we can build. But I would also say even for workers who do have the right to join unions under the National Labor Relations Act or state labor laws, the laws are broken in many ways. First of all, there's a procedural obstacle course that makes it virtually very difficult for workers to organize and when they do, far too often they're organized into small employer-based groups. Now there's a lot that we can do for one employer at a time. Many of the accomplishments of the labor movement over the years have been built just that way. But at the end of the day growing worker power one worksite at a time isn't going to work because it's just too damn slow and too many people are excluded. So getting to the place where we can organize sectorally within entire industries I think is going to be key to building worker power. But then the third thing that I would say has to do with employer behavior. Because the labor laws in this country privilege employers, they allow employers to get away with running brutal anti-union campaigns. Some employer tactics are technically legal, some are not legal but there's no enforcement, there's no accountability so it almost doesn't matter whether what they do is legal or illegal. And so we have the anomalous situation where recent Gallup polling shows that 1% of people in this country favor unions and yet 6% of private sector workers have those unions. And I want to just draw attention to the appreciated tail you're raising Starbucks. First of all it's something worth an incredible amount of celebrating that two weeks ago we reached an agreement with Starbucks that will create a framework for building a union and a union contract to get across all unionized Starbucks workers. There are now 400 Starbucks stores that have unionized into Workers United which is part of SEIU. And on the one hand to totally celebrate this it's a huge breakthrough, it's a big deal when the words was announced workers gathered all across the country in their stores and the amount of celebration, the glee, the tears, the joy was just incredibly moving and we are full of hope about what is going to be possible because of the courage of Starbucks workers all across this country. But, and there is a but, it should not have taken what these workers have gone through for the last three years when despite organizing in 400 stores we've had over 200 workers fired for union activity and over 400 unfair labor practices complaints upheld by the National Labor Relations Board. And I would, I want to, I think a lot about Lexi Rizzo who's a Starbucks worker in Buffalo, an activist in one of the first stores that organized into the union. She's 25 now, she's worked for, started working for Starbucks when she was 17 and she led the organizing in her store. And in an incident that is really just typical, not remotely unusual of what happens when workers try to organize she was fired, interestingly she was fired two days after Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, testified in front of the help committee in the Senate saying that Starbucks always honors labor law and she was fired for being late on four occasions two of those occasions she was one minute late and the other two occasions she was five minutes late. So for a total of less than 12 minutes of tardiness she was fired clearly a pretext for her engagement in union activity. And interestingly when questioned about that at the Labor Board they said well it wasn't really just those four occasions, there was a previous time that she had been two hours late and I note that the time that she was two hours late was after she had just participated in what fast food workers call a cloapening, which is when you close late one night and then have to go home, grab a few hours of sleep, wake up early the next morning and come back and open the same store less than ten hours later. And for somebody like Lexi and there are hundreds and thousands of Lexis I think we owe it to her, we owe it to all of the Lexis of the world to change the laws so that employers can't get away with doing what Starbucks did and just one other thing that Starbucks did that I think is worth noting is over the two years, three years that we've been organizing and that Starbucks workers have been organizing they have given raises at all of their non-union stores and they introduced a policy in their non-union stores where customers could do digital tips which is an important part of compensation if you work in a Starbucks. They wouldn't extend those benefits to any of the union stores and they said oh well that's because we have to negotiate with the union despite the fact that the union was said loud and clear to those changes in terms and conditions and it's just a classic example of on the one hand you fire union activists on the other hand you send a message loud and clear that if workers dare to organize they're going to be punished for it and until we change those things we're not going to be able to build the level of workers power that we need having said that there is a huge amount that can be accomplished thanks to the Lexis of this world thank you Leslie and Denise I was just thinking about how Theo pointed out that rock which a lot of people associate with obviously fighting for better quality jobs also does a lot of job preparation a lot of workforce training and yet didn't see itself in the space of broader sort of workforce development and training despite the Chao program and all the folks who have come through it when we think about all these efforts outside of the workforce system that do center workers and I think also highlight that workers want the preparation they want to do their jobs well what does it look like and how can we bring those groups and those efforts into the system and really make the broader system more focused on workers well I'm glad you mentioned that because and to answer that question I think we got to take a step back and look at workforce development that doesn't center workers and you know if I'm being honest it's we're looking at who does this benefit and if you're just looking at the employer those needs could be more frames with and what I've seen personally and my time in Florida was honestly like the short term needs of the employer so we're just getting you ready to be able to get on that job site be able to do the thing right and then we have also seen in cases with rock and apprenticeship programs and so forth the long where the benefit here is not just for the employer it's actually the workers it's actually to benefit the whole industry and so that long term thinking you know is really where you see and develop workers are able to get the skills they need as well as you know all those components that you talked about Leslie to then be able to I guess like it's a different it's a different setup and orientation let me just say like workers are stakeholders and so in that regard you know they're stakeholders they have skills that are transferable to any site they really have insight to a whole industry and they're a part of the conversation and so you know what that then leads to is worker power it leads to raising the standards across an industry less turn over you know if you're just preparing me for this job site here and I say it because my experience was seeing it through construction it's like you know all these shortcuts that they were seeing often times it was about just the work site it wasn't taking into account the worker their lives and so forth so in that regard often times the turn over is going to be high and in the cases I saw in construction projects were left behind you know in their you know in their time meeting their deadlines so you know I just say that I think it's important of how workers are being empowered and really understand that they're stakeholders they're making an investment industry through their labor and so workforce development that is centering workers in that regard you see the difference you see where workers are here for the long term and viewed as stakeholders and so I well that's a great point Denise I hadn't even appreciated what you're saying I think in some ways is that you have completely different incentives we know that anyway but you're saying there's also a difference in the time sort of horizon employers are thinking about short term profits often right and workers are at least thinking about long term well being for themselves their families their community so as much as some of this is certainly adversarial there are ways in which it sounds like a worker centered workforce development strategy could be better for the overall economy is that fair I mean when you're giving some of these examples that was sort of coming to mind I mean and what we're really talking about is the ways in which we're democratizing workplaces right and through collective bargaining but also through this way of workforce development because now they have a seat at the table now they give insight and I just to me you know in my time in Florida I would see is just like why wouldn't you want a bus driver you know or the construction worker or the bartender to have a say in how the training happens to have a say in input in safety standards and so forth you know like to me it was I didn't get it but you know and there was something about this adversarial kind of feeling and I speak a perfect example during the COVID the local central Florida transit authority there was a shortage of bus drivers which then means there's a shortage in access for transportation on these buses buses really so it was a very it became this very big problem in this shortage and so the authority working alongside the amalgamated transit union ATU we're working together to like create an apprenticeship program for drivers and in that they're like oh I don't think we should be talking you know like there was this level of you know this like awkwardness and I'm like this is a win-win situation and not just for the drivers not just for the authority but also for the community right and so here within working together they were able to solve and navigate the barriers that were coming up with the CDL certification that a driver's needs because it got more complicated and so forth so that's just one example where really you know it's it's been not even adversarial but this notion that you know they should be at odds when actually there when they do come to the table together really provides really impactful workforce development and when you think about the occupational segregation Teo described workers at the table also completely changes so I think that's probably also important way that you get better decisions because we know you get better decisions that way so I really appreciate that let me jump back to you Leslie I appreciate some of the examples you both brought in in some ways we're building off of things that are actually happening in the world but they're not necessarily at the scale that we could imagine or that we need right so that said SCIU you have a lot of experience and familiarity with some examples of worker centered approaches to training you have some of your members who stay with you throughout their careers how have you seen this work Leslie and really change people's lives so first I want to reinforce something Denise said because I think you made a really important point about the different perspectives that employers and workers bring to conversations about training and worker development because in employers mind the question is how do I fill these hard to fill vacancies and what's the shortest and most efficient way of getting the jobs filled and what the workers bring to the conversation and by the way I'm not dismissing that that's important too but what the workers bring to the conversation is how do I prepare myself for a job that is rewarding where I can advance myself and through labor management training partnerships when we get both of those perspectives at the table that's I think when we get the most powerful workers centered training that also meets the need of employers and it's when and how it's different workers perspective will focus much more on retention and less on recruitment because it's about how do we develop the people we already have as a collateral advantage for the employers because those are the workers who are most likely to stay they are already there. It also leans into wrap around services and this is where I think it contributes significantly to equity because the folks who are most likely to need childcare in order to be able to go to school peer mentoring, wrap around services the ability tutoring are those who are those kinds of programs disproportionately benefit the lowest wage workers and those who face the most barriers in advancement and so I think that bringing workers to the table also has I benefits workers to your point it's a win-win it does help employers absolutely and fill those filling those hard to fill jobs but it also creates addresses needs for diversity and equity in the workplace and I think that that point can't be stressed enough the impact it has on individual workers lives is profound and I would say I'm not a I'm not a crier it takes a lot I don't even cry in sad movies but one thing that always makes me cry is going to graduation ceremonies of our labor management training partnerships where workers talk about the impact that it has on their lives and I'll just tell you quickly because I know we're short on time but watching a nursing home worker named Essie who was in her early 70s I think and had been a nursing home worker all her life tell the story to all of us who were gathered to celebrate her getting her GED to hearing her tell the story about how it had been a source of shame in her life that when her daughters got to about third grade she wasn't able to help them with their homework anymore because she really didn't read very well and that she decided when she had grandchildren that she was not going to let that happen again and so she and her grandchildren studied together with support from the unions training fund which provided her with tutoring with mentoring with wraparound services with classes with her peers she was able not just to help her grandchildren when they were third graders but all the way through high school or the story of a hospital housekeeper who I met just recently named Jokisha who had been terrified because she dropped out of high school when she got pregnant at 15 and she said you know I didn't mind dropping out of high school school was never my thing and she became a hospital housekeeper good union job was able to support her daughter until the hospital announced that they had adopted a new policy saying that everybody had to have a high school diploma within a year or they would be let go and she just didn't think she could do it but her union steward said Jokisha you can do it we can give you the support that we need and she not only got her high school diploma kept her job as a housekeeper but she said to me you know now I'm thinking maybe I could become a certified nurse as well and you'll hear from other folks later on today the stories are countless and they transform workers lives but they also for employers they keep workers by creating an opportunity for workers to advance themselves within their place of employment they deal with the huge job churn that we've seen particularly since the pandemic and I was recently in a meeting with a number of employers talking about how valuable these programs were and also an official from the White House was joining us to learn more about these programs and at the end of the meeting she said to me well how do we do more of this and I would say two things one is government policy helps because if we could get the government to put in funding for programs like this we could scale in a different way but that it's also at the risk of going back to where we started you only have training programs with workers at the table where workers have a voice through unionization and so it circles back to this question of creating good jobs is a multi front approach that has to include empowering workers to have unions as well as public policies and that make it possible for workers to advance partnerships where employers and workers together can see the win-win from Denise's point earlier. If folks want to we have a few minutes left for questions if anyone has questions get your questions ready I just want to see if Denise wants to add anything on the what can government public policy do I've got some examples of more funding obviously making the organizing process not merely a cost of business for employers to oppose but are there other things Denise you would add and we have two folks who have mics so you can find them if you want to get in line for questions but what else can government do what can public policy do to help us get this re-envisioned workforce development system? I mean I think I would just amplify what Leslie is saying about government playing in public policies in these local agencies and just playing a more active role in participating with this orientation of worker centered workforce development because I think they're like oh no you all just duke it out over here or you know they're just not as active and I think it's really really important because again what we don't we have to really be bold and reimagining particularly for us as jobs with justice we've been really engaged in thinking about workforce development and particularly in the south where we're in this moment where there are opportunities to really envision industries that for example the EV industry is really building up in the south and what are ways with these new technologies and so forth that we can use this as an opportunity to address some equity issues that has been in the south and historically there but also so fix those wrongs in the south but also to this point of how government is really standing behind that and participating in ways of that re-envisioning of you know the workforce in the south so that's like one key important opportunity I see but just overall like much more active participation because when it does happen in that way it's a win-win-win being also for local governments let's turn to the audience for couple quick questions introduce yourself I'm with the greater Washington community foundation I'm curious if there's been conversation with the good jobs collaborative about worker ownership there seems to be like this separate conversation about worker ownership in the entrepreneurship space but there doesn't seem to be this connection about worker ownership in the job space and so I'm just curious about what conversations workers as owners because you know that also leads to quality jobs as well so I mean I'll just say I'm not surprised at the trend because that is clearly linked to where in the workforce workers feel like they don't have power they don't have a say so that's where they're exiting in the way where they're saying okay I can be an owner this is how I see they see that as the pathway and so I do think the more and more that workers are having a voice their needs are being addressed and then formally through this process of collective bargaining and through workers center workforce development that then that changes a bit and we can just now reimagine what does it look like to have ownership to actually be a stakeholder in that type of ecosystem so that's all that came to mind for me did you add anything to that? maybe some of the speakers later can talk more about the collaborative discussions around that are there other questions yeah we have one from online from anonymous someone is asking aspects of a good job would resonate with large organizations what is the equivalent to a path to a union for small businesses so I believe that all workers need unions and whether they are big corporations or small employers workers need a voice and even in a relatively small work setting the power imbalance between the employer and the worker what unions do is they create a more level playing field I don't want to say a completely level playing field because I don't think that's true but they create a more level playing field and that's necessary wherever there is a power imbalance whether at a large corporation or a small business but I would also say that because there are some practicality questions and this goes back to what I said before when I was talking about a sectoral approach to organizing I think that we need public policies through which workers collectively using political power can set standards that would govern all employers whether all employers across the board or all employers in a specific industry as a way of lifting the floor because realistically I'd like to think we would wave a magic wand and tomorrow every worker in this country would be in a union but to the extent that that isn't going to happen I think that we have an obligation to create policies that lift standards for non-union workers as well and I would just give one example of that and it's another fast food example in California because there have been many jobs in Burger King and Wendy's and every fast food company that there is have been trying to organize workers for years and have had dozens of strikes and just have been in a very fierce struggle to win a union we have not won a union for McDonald's workers in California but what we did win was a wage board where the state legislature created a wage board in California and a wage board with workers and their representatives at the table that will establish standards going forward and so that's a way where McDonald's is mostly franchises it's workers who work in a, you know, they only have 15 co-workers if they did organize a union they'd be sitting across the table from their franchise owner who frankly doesn't have the power to give them what they need anyway so it's a way of combining power across small enterprises to create standards that are sectoral and just one more example that I would give in the state of Nevada most home care is done by small agencies many of which have 20, 30, 40 workers and again those workers have been organizing into unions a thousand home care workers in Nevada have joined our union in the last year but at the same time that they were organizing we also went together to the legislature to establish a standards board that set a recommendation for a $16 minimum wage for home care workers that was adopted by the legislature and resulted in every home care worker in Nevada going from roughly $11 an hour to $15 an hour and by the way that standards board also recommended a training standard the standard being that employers could not require their workers to pay for training that was a condition of continuing employed so just a training example as well that speaks to how do we raise standards across sectors which I think is going to be critically important to specifically for workers of small enterprises to go back to the question from the online can I just add something? Yes please. Yeah so on that I mean I would just say that is also like the opportunity around imagination around understanding like collective bargaining like really what we're talking about is practicing economic democracy right and democracy just doesn't happen in civic life it also happens in at work and so with the smaller employers for all the examples that you gave around how we're that's a perfect way to talk about it around how we're really just like practicing you know practicing economic democracy I may have a question on that but I want to make sure everyone who's participating can jump in with question online or in person although I'm going to pose a question we have plenty of questions coming in online so here's another one from anonymous how can we better integrate undocumented workers into the conversation on job quality and workforce development they prop up whole industries yet are excluded That's a great question hard to imagine maybe that situation and child labor situations where people have less power relative to their employers how do we bring undocumented workers to the table we still have millions I mean you mentioned earlier about you know the exclusion the legal exclusion through law so I think one it's revisiting those policies right to make sure that they are included and visibilized as a workforce so one I think it's starting with the laws I think also to the degree around back to collective bargaining and ways that that can also that inclusion also happens in representation what else I would say some of the parts of the economy where we have seen the most growth in union membership and union power recently have been in parts of the economy where the presence of undocumented workers is considerable I think about the justice for janitors fight through which tens of thousands of janitors have joined our union over the years and fought to make those living wage jobs a sector in which an overwhelming majority of the workers are immigrant and a significant number are undocumented workers and I also think you know I think Denise is right about this question of how do we include sectors so we've been working hard sectors that are currently where workers are currently excluded from all rights and I think you know farm workers another obvious example of where undocumented workers are concentrated and I think about gig workers uber and lift drivers another sector where we have been trying to establish you know excluded from labor law because the federal government considers them independent contractors we've been trying to figure out how can we at a state level pass standards that both lift up their economic terms provide basic protections and a path to union as well so I think that it is both about an obligation that we all share as a movement of prioritizing work in sectors where undocumented workers are concentrated recognizing the particular challenges that undocumented workers face as they try to advocate and organize but also including the large swaths of the economy that are excluded from protection of many basic labor laws. Thank you. Do we have other questions? We have plenty of questions streaming in online but I want to give a chance to the in-person audience. Team online. There we go we've got one here and if you don't mind just introducing yourself. My question is this. I've been surprised at the success of the right to work movement because it seems almost like a feudal throwback and the characterization of unionization as sort of communist and socialist when unionization has a stellar history in this country so can you talk about why it doesn't seem that the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, whoever else says say is not stepping in because it seems like these are just illegal practices. Yeah, that's a great question. And sometimes it's hard to keep track of what's illegal and what should be but isn't but do you either want to tackle that why do we have so much of this hostile behavior toward union rampant in the economy? I would say two things. One is that I want to talk about right to work without talking about the racist origins of the right to work system which was designed so that white southern workers would not be forced to be in union with black workers and so that's where it came from. That's the origins and that remains central I believe to the efforts to expand right to work provisions. It's about corporate power. It's about keeping unions and workers weak. Understanding that when the labor movement, that it is a way, it really is that simple and it is, you know, the rise of right to work corresponds with the rise of economic inequality. It corresponds with the rise of corporate power and corporate greed but I don't want to end on a despairing note because the state of Michigan just a few weeks ago, well a few weeks ago, repealed right to work and that's now in effect where Michigan is no longer a right to work state and tomorrow at the state capitol in Michigan a bill will be introduced to give home care workers the right to organize a right that they used to have that was rescinded by when Michigan went triple red and we're now about to restore when it goes triple blue. Now that it's triple blue. The right wing has huge power. We know that we wouldn't be where we were if they didn't and yet there is just a huge amount that we can accomplish when we organize. Home care is a great example of when workers are more involved, you get better quality, better care, save lives. Thank you for sort of wrapping up on that positive note. I'm going to give you a chance to wrap up with anything you want to say. Oh anything. Well you did it right there and again it as someone who was in a right to work state for 15 years and then often times with I was a local director of a jobs with justice would come to my office saying are you workforce development? You know so for me being on this panel and this initiative I just am so excited because it really it is the opportunity and just the imagination to really impact workers lives and really build our communities differently in a way that recognizes the dignity of people whether in civil society or in their workplace. So this is great. Thank you for having me. No thank you all and one of the things I'll certainly take away is maybe this isn't too strong of a statement but in some ways this collaborative can really strengthen our democracy. Yeah. So we could use that. Are you a believer now? So thank you both. Thank you Leslie. Thank you Denise and we'll turn it over. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is India Hextal. I'm a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy also known as class. I'm delighted to share one of many papers that we're going to release through the Good Jobs Collaborative in partnership with New America and other members of the collaborative itself. So let's go ahead and dive in. The title of this paper is Unleashing Worker Power, Case Studies in Building Good Jobs Beyond the Traditional Workforce System. As Mary Atlas said in her opening remarks, the U.S. labor market fails to meet minimal expectations that every worker deserves, a job that provides family sustaining wages and benefits, workplace protections and a voice in the workplace, especially for women and workers of color who often face discrimination and are disproportionately occupying low paying positions without adequate benefits. To add insult to injury, the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, WIOA is the nation's largest workforce development system and is a relatively weak system that is not using its limited resources to push for quality and greater equity of access. Instead, the system tends to perpetuate existing structures and is indifferent to building workers' rights and power. Despite these challenges, workers across the nation are reimagining and restructuring jobs and training. And in this paper we feature three case studies where workers are transforming jobs. The three organizations that we focus on in this paper are HCAP, the Healthcare Career Advancement Program, MASH, Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Organization, and Restaurant Opportunity Center United, also called Rock United. These three organizations are building workforce development strategies outside the national workforce system and their work showcases the shortcomings of the traditional system and offers concrete examples of what a worker-centered workforce development system could look like that's rooted in worker power. So, let's go ahead and get started with HCAP. HCAP is a national labor management organization building the workforce for quality care through worker-centered workforce development infrastructure and training by partnering with unions, workers, employers, healthcare recipients, and communities. At the core of HCAP's mission is confronting occupational segregation in healthcare and building toward transformative systemic changes in care delivery, training, and education across sectors. So, how does HCAP center workers in the healthcare industry? HCAP and its network of labor management training partnerships have pioneered an equity forward worker power building model for workforce development. HCAP and its network bring healthcare labor and employer stakeholders together to respond to industry-specific challenges and collaborate on delivering innovative worker-centered programming. This model intentionally focuses on creating opportunities for family-standing careers in healthcare and supporting access to good union jobs for workers of color, immigrants, and women who have historically been locked out of higher paying union jobs by races and sexes policy choices. HCAP and its partners enroll workers from targeted populations in high quality healthcare training programs administered by state and local labor management training partnerships that emphasize placing and retaining workers in quality union healthcare jobs upon completion. HCAP pioneered applying the registered apprenticeship model to healthcare which awards workers a portable industry-recognized credential at the full performance level for the occupation upon completion of their apprenticeship. The employer is directly involved in administering paid on-the-job training and workers see an increase in skills and competencies that are directly tied to increase in earnings for the participant. HCAP and its network partners offer first-of-their-kind training programs and wraparound supports in the long-term care sector, especially in home care, a sector disproportionately staffed by black and brown women providing vital care to low-income older adults and people with disabilities through state Medicaid programs. In addition to orientation and safety training for newly hired home care workers, labor management training partnerships also offer additional training for incumbent workers in a number of states such as California, Connecticut, and Illinois. The labor management training partnership organizations are accountable directly to the unionized workers and employers who agree to create and fund them usually through the collective targeting process. Employers often agree to fund the labor management training partnerships to ensure that their workforce can access high-quality training benefits and fill necessary jobs. The resulting labor management training partnership career education advancement programs are designed to be explicitly worker-centered and focus on adult learners utilizing evidence-based best practices that help workers access training, succeed in the curriculum, and graduate with good union jobs, with the ability to grow in advance in the health care field. Next, let's talk a bit about Restaurant Opportunity Center United. Rocky United works to improve restaurant workers' lives by building worker power and uniting workers in various backgrounds around shared goals and values. Rocky United envisages a society that treats workers with dignity and respect and an industry that prioritizes racial and gender equity and strives to increase the standard of living for all working-class people. Organizers and member leaders enact this vision by organizing a base of restaurant workers across the country to push for change in their own restaurants and to advocate for broader policy improvements for all workers. This work begins by organizing restaurant workers to address issues like wage theft, workplace discrimination, or sexual harassment. With rock support workers file claims with their appropriate city or state offices and engage in collective action to encourage restaurant workers to address ongoing or past workplace issues or legal practices. In recognition of the rampant occupational segregation in the restaurant industry and as part of its goal to lift the floor of all restaurant workers, while building ladders of opportunity to better paying positions, Rocky United began the Colors Hospitality Opportunities for Workers Child Institute, which operates in eight cities across the U.S. and has trained more than 10,000 workers. The child training programs helps restaurant workers advance their careers with critical know-your-rights training and other political education components. Child classes, like the Art of Service, combine skills such as proper table setting and understanding point of service software with education on the federal and state laws that govern the restaurant industry, helping workers understand their rights under the law. Rocky United's curriculum ensures that workers can both excel within the restaurant industry and improve their workplaces by understanding their rights as workers, the obligations of their employers, and the past improvements to the industry won through worker-led campaigns. Rocky United also operates outside the traditional workforce system. Child programs are generally funded through private philanthropy with no cost to the worker or employers. Child Institute does not receive support through WIOA funds or support via the workforce boards rather than support workers to enter training programs like the Child Service, instead go to the National Restaurant Association, which fights against job quality, worker protections, and regulations in the restaurant industry. We believe that federal dollars should flow to Rocky United training programs which take a worker-centered approach that responds to workers' needs, increases workers' economic security, and improves job quality standards in the industry. And then finally, the other case study in this paper is the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Organization, which is a service of hospitality workers in Milwaukee focused on job quality in the labor market for service workers. MASH combines the functions of a labor union, workforce intermediary, and worker center under one organizational roof. The membership of the union is roughly 1,000 workers and growing across nine work sites. And there are three components MASH uses to raise the floor under Milwaukee's service work. The first MASH work is to build a democratic and dynamic union. Service workplaces need to be organized. Service workers need contracts to raise job quality, representation to defend the contract standards, and the collective work and solidarity that the union allows. In Wisconsin, with anti-union right to work rules in place, MASH is doing direct union work recruitment and representation of members bargaining and enforcing contracts at its work sites. This way, MASH is building worker power on the job. The second component is MASH work and partnership with represented employers to solve industry problems and recruitment, skill, job quality, and workforce development. MASH staff work to co-determine schedules with employers, mobilize workers for available work and shifts, and analyze and plan for workforce challenges while taking the lead on implementing solutions. This work seeks to improve schedules for workers that create more steady employment with reduced turnover of staff. MASH third strategy is to focus on economic development in the city and ensure that union rights reach more service workers. This requires an organizational strategy that attends carefully to public and private development in Milwaukee, monitoring economic development proposals, and urging elected officials to use their leverage to secure stronger service job standards. MASH also does operate outside the traditional workforce system. The system does not address the problems of service and hospitality work in the ways that are priorities for MASH members. The system does not attend to job quality or account for the defining characteristics of the majority of work in the sector as part-time casual contingent, where workers and employers are responsible for navigating all labor market friction without coordination. MASH is building a workforce system at the center of the labor market that coordinates between workers and multiple employers, establishes and enforces common economic standards, provides at home for large benefits, and creates and manages a pool and pipeline of workers. Taylor spoke earlier to some of the Good Jobs Collaborative principles. In this paper, we expand a bit on these principles and offer strategies to improve the existing national workforce system and highlight the need for policies that integrate workers' rights and protections into workforce development. So I'll quickly go through some of the strategies outlined in these principles, and I'll start first with the put workers first and build worker power. The strategies under this principle focus on ensuring that public resources and policies should actively be in service to workers first, always center workers' interests and needs, and rectify structural inequities in the economy. The system should advance workers' voices, power, organizing, and unionization. The strategies involve ensuring worker representation in state and local workforce funding decisions, providing comprehensive training on workers' rights and job quality, prioritizing funding for worker-centered programs like the Child Institute of York United, and prioritizing and creating inclusive funding streams for all incumbent workers, simplifying grant processes for smaller organizations, developing sectoral training standards through collaboration, and investing in innovative work for strategies driven by worker input and organized labor, ultimately aiming to empower workers and improve job conditions across industries. The next principle is combating the legacy, current conditions, and ongoing impact of structural racism and sexism within the labor market. The strategies proposed here include implementing targeted race-conscious programs and funding streams to address specific harms by workers of color in the labor market, setting goals to counter occupational segregation, and requiring disaggregated race data reporting at the program level. Additionally, ensuring uninterrupted wages and benefits for participants and training programs, along with funding for comprehensive supportive services is recommended to enhance workforce development programs effectiveness. The third principle of raise the floor on all jobs for all workers, these strategies focus on ensuring that all workers and their families should be able to thrive. A worker-centered workforce development system should engage in activities and direct resources that raise the quality of jobs for all workers, ensure that the full range of workers' rights are protected and raise standards across all occupations and industries. The strategies proposed here involve comprehensive labor reform, including passing the Perl Act and addressing obstacles for union formation among restaurant workers, implementing fair scheduling laws such as the Schedules that Work Act and the Part-Time Workers' Bill of Rights Act, ending the tip minimum wage, raising the federal minimum wage to a family sustaining level, and passing the Family Act to provide basic pay leave for family and medical purposes, aiming to improve working conditions and well-being. And then finally, the fourth principle is directing people to good jobs. These strategies focus on ensuring that a worker-centered workforce development system builds pathways into good jobs for workers who are unemployed or underemployed. This happens through a combination of active labor market policies, high-quality training and career counseling, support services, and prioritizing job quality. The strategies proposed here include time public workforce funding to the provision of high-quality jobs with family sustaining wages and the option to unionize, defending and measuring job quality prioritizing labor management partnerships for funding and policy support, expanding registered apprenticeship programs, and advocating for industry-wide standards to establish minimum wage and benefit levels, aiming to improve overall job quality and opportunities. And with that, I urge each and every one of you to delve into the insightful content of the Good Jobs Collaborative Papers available on our website. And with that, I would like to introduce our next panel. I will turn it over to Dr. Kayla Elliott, who is Director of Workforce Policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. From the south. Good morning. All right. Thank you all for joining us. As India said, I am Kayla Elliott. I'm the Director of Workforce Policy at the Joint Center, which is America's Black Think Tank, and we are super excited to be a member of this coalition and here today. I'm going to have some quick questions for my colleagues here. We have been in the back enjoying and watching the program today, but also getting to know each other, and it's been a pleasure for sure. So we'll start with Danielle. So you're the Executive Director of HCAP and have led the development of labor management programs for decades. Can you tell us more about labor management partnerships, how they're different, and how these models center workers' interests and needs, knowing that we heard quite a bit about them already. Yeah. So I know you got to hear about them. I know Leslie lifted up a lot of the structures. Labor management partnerships are really just that, right? It is really bringing labor and workers to the table. So when we think about workforce development, what doesn't work is one to have training happening that people come out of and have no jobs to go to. That doesn't work. What also doesn't work is to set up trainings that workers go to and then can't be successful through, right? That doesn't work. And what also doesn't work is to have training programs go through, they get jobs, and the training actually didn't set them up for success in that. So labor management really just brings together these two crucial components, which is the workers who are doing the work on a day-to-day basis. We heard this earlier. But I'm going to talk to how a CNA work happens. I'm going to ask a CNA, right? That's who's going to tell me what it looks like and feels like on a daily basis. We need those voices at the table. And we also got to make sure as we're thinking about workforce development meeting the industry needs, both short-term and long-term. It doesn't help anyone if we're not bringing those two folks to the table. So this is formal organizations bring those voices together. They are often governed by labor management boards, right? So it's not just about the creation. It's the governance that workers and labor are making decisions around creation and implementation of programs. I would say traditional workforce programs do not do that, right? It doesn't actually bring intentional space to have those voices at the table. I would say often to the voices we don't get to hear a lot from in traditional workforce programs are incumbent workers. A lot of systems are geared towards moving people from unemployment into employment. And what does it mean to actually hear from the folks who are doing the work on a daily basis, but also creating opportunities for those individuals, if they choose to, to have access to education and move their career. So those are sort of what the labor management partnership organizations are and how they differ. I would say, and you heard Leslie talk about this in the sort of centering of workers, is when we think about the implementation of these kind of programings, one, when we think workforce development, it's not just training. We have to think about job placement. We have to think about retention. We have to think about those supportive things. That's the first day on my job. Who do I go to to ask questions? Where is my support? We have to think about the full A through the Z of this. And so when we start to ask workers and sort of center them, we're able to think about how to do all of that. We also think about what Leslie had mentioned earlier, what we call wraparound services. So these organizations are also really intentional to say what does that mean to set up programs for success and workers for success. So that can mean a variety of things. One of the things, adult learner, I don't know, I remember when I went back to school for, I needed help. Like I needed coaching. I needed career counseling. So those kind of supportive services, transportation, childcare, the kind of tutoring, right? So what are the, how do we think about workers as whole people in what does it mean to support them as whole people through the whole entire programming? So that's what these organizations do is really center workers and their needs fully through the whole journey of workforce development programs. So when we talk about centering workers, where do we start? What does it look like in practice? Yeah. So I say this often and I mean this very sincerely. It starts with asking questions to workers and actually listening to answers. I can't tell you how many times I'm in spaces and we ask questions and we don't actually listen to answers. So it really does start to talk to workers, ask questions and really listen to the answers and implement what we are learning from workers into the way we think about our systems and our programs. So I think that is one way in which we do that. I mentioned before a lot of these organizations are actually governed by a labor management board. So actually workers are at the table, not just in the sort of thinking about programs but the governance of these organizations. I think that's very important. If you don't have it as that formal, you can do things like a labor management committee or other sort of advisory infrastructures that actually put workers in decision making spaces. And I think about some of the innovations we are seeing happening across the country right now. And this is sort of I think gets to your question on how this can go. So we think about recruitment strategies we talked earlier about the crisis of worker shortage that's happening. I think the best people to recruit are folks doing the work, right? So how do we think about using different models of having workers drive this? So can workers be the ones who are doing the work going out and helping recruit folks into those positions into that industry? So it's also we got to think differently on how we are doing some of these programs and having worker voice really lead that process. Awesome. Thank you, Danielle. I'm going to transition and welcome and introduce two of our workers who are here with us today. We have Alima Iskakova who's a restaurant server and member of Rock United in New York City and Jehan Baptiste who's lead at echocardiogram tech and member of SEIU United Health Care Workers East 1199. So we'll start with you, Jehan. Introduce yourself and tell us about your experiences. Hi everybody. Good morning. My name is Jehan Baptiste. I work at United Medical Center in Washington DC and also a proud member of 1199 SEIU Health Care Workers East. I began my career as a cardiac sonographer but before that I had a little bit of educational background with going to Temple University but at the time while I was going there and my parents and I couldn't afford to continue going to school so I began my career as a cardiac sonographer doing ultrasound at heart which is basically looking at the muscle of the heart and the valves within it and the speed of blood going through the valves so I could give my expertise on what I was looking at. I decided the 1199 SEIU had a training fund to go back to school and see what I could do and expand on my education. I eventually got my degree or bachelor's in healthcare services management from the University of Maryland Global Campus online but I was able to complete that program debt free. So I don't have to pay any suit loans back. I was able to use part of the funds and also my own money I was making from work to just pay for it and get the degree and accomplish that. I really appreciate being a part of this panel today and explaining my story. Thank you. How about you Alina? Hi, my name is Alima Iskakova I've been living in New York City for 12 years and out of these 12 years I've been in the hospitality industry around like 8 years and currently I work in a really big catering in the restaurant establishment and during my past time I dealt with the photography and as you know a lot of people in the restaurant hospitality industry are women, people of color and immigrants like me and originally I'm from Kazakhstan. Thank you so much for helping me thank you New America, thank you Rock United. I'm really honored to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here for sure. So what were the kind of things that set you up for success in the program that you're doing? So the program offer I think off the bat it was the vouchers for me and being able to select what school I could go to. I'm a mother I have two, a single mother actually, I have two children so it's hard to kind of like find like a work life balance where you can go to school, go to work, take care of your children of course having them in child care and stuff like that I've worked with it many times but having the ability to have the access to the trainer funds being the voucher being your classes being paid in advance so you don't have to worry about like the next semester saying oh am I able to sign up for class because I don't have the money or enough money to like get into the next semester and so I didn't have to juggle that it was easier to the voucher to be sent to the school and have to worry about reimbursement and then I you know was able to kind of like go for also another thing that helped was being able to reach out to someone in the training fund to ask questions like hey I'm struggling on this class I don't know what to do. This class is really really hard and being offered a tutor or I have another example when my uncle passed and I was like oh my gosh I don't know what to do I'm not sure whether I'm in the right headspace and getting the encouragement and words of wisdom say hey Jahan if you can you know it's okay to kind of like take a pause and you know we could pause that course and you could take it next semester it really helped. I was able to make it and go through with the process and accomplish a good grade get a good grade for that course but going through that and being able to have the help that was needed from the training fund really helped me so. Thank you how about you Halima? I'm very grateful that I found Rock New York and I participated in a child training program I was trained for serving and bartending and after graduation I found a better and more opportunities for myself and that's why currently I work in a higher restaurant and a catering establishment and not only that that skill set that I got from child training program because of this skills that I received I got better job better opportunities and with a higher income so that's why it's very important especially like right now for immigrants like myself to have access to this type of training development programs. What do we need to be thinking about when we center workers in this work how should things be shifted to account for workers interests and needs and what do you need and want from the economy and the workforce? I think we have to really like center ourselves on like the importance of having a union because without the union we wouldn't be able to like advocate what kind of benefits we need to have and so being a part of that process is very important in order to stand up and say hey we need these kinds of benefits for the employees of our institution. Also working at United Medical Center right now they're like in loom of closing so I had to set up a game plan and say hey I need to educate myself in this arena so that I could be more marketable in the workplace or the workforce. I need to show people that I can actually you know do the job or can you know that I'm able and capable of doing so. Also there's just so many other things that it just opens the door to your mind as education is power and you can use it in different ways so I think that is probably the main part for the workers especially. Very grateful at organizing initiative activities. With Rock United we went to Albany, Washington DC and when we went to Albany along with the other workers we went for fair wage campaign and the job protection and we met assembly members, senators and we could speak up, we could hear like because where I'm coming from it was for me it was like it was a new experience, new opportunity to be heard and also went several years ago I was in Washington DC here for the rally for job protection and with all of these skills that I received through the child training program and I think for workers it's very important to be heard, to speak up and also job protection, paid sick time power, like this power that people can have that power and do different kind of activities to be heard and move forward and also with economy and inflation prices are going up and it's good with this training program that they give such kind of opportunity and to thrive through the fair wage. Thank you Thank you. Alright I think we have some time for questions both from the audience here with us in person and online. And for India if you want to join us at the podium. We have a mic in the back if you are interested. Okay so we do have a question that's just come in from online. It says giving worker organizations at the seat, a seat at the table is a good start. But I have a seat on our board and the board has very little power. How do we build these goals into WIOA? I'm going to start with Danielle. Okay. Yeah I mean I think there's a theme probably coming out of some of those questions. I mean I really do think part of this is around sort of our policy and legislation. When we start to think about we do exist in an infrastructure that is not about centering workers and part of how we need to shift that and especially in some of our sort of systems throughout this country is we need to shift that narrative so that it's not just about creating seats at the table but seats at the table where workers actually have voice and say. And so again we have models across the country with their labor management training partnerships that are governed by a labor management organization that do make the decisions for that organization. So how do we continue to elevate those models in really how that seat bring that to scale. Center for Law and Social Policy actually just released a paper a week or two ago on this particular issue. And so I believe the current, we advocate for changing the current workforce board structure, governor's board structure through WIOA. Currently I believe the workforce board is comprised of like 25, 20 percent of worker representatives. And we are advocating to change that to at least half percent of the workforce board is made of work organizations, workers themselves, organizations that represent workers. And so feel free to check out our paper on this Center for Law and Social Policy, class.org and read all about it. Question for you two ladies, how did you learn about the training programs you participated in and then what can other organizations and other training programs do to better reach the community to reach those participants we're looking to serve for these opportunities. I think a particular like the 1199 SCI union did a great job of like providing us the tools that we needed, flyers, the representatives or the delegates reaching out and saying, hey, we have a fund available having meetings, chapter meetings to explain how you can access those funds, who to call, who to contact, giving you email addresses all the way down the line.  So it's, you know, you're not incapable of receiving education. There was actually a particular employee that works at United Medical Center is doing Phlebotomy now. At first she was an EVS worker. So now, you know, just by talking and just letting people know, hey, you can access this.  So it's very helpful that they have really, I mean and that's why I'm here today, you know, it's because of the tremendous work that they have done for me. My name is Alima. Maybe there is something to do with my name if you translate Alima. It's educated and knowledgeable. I really like to study. I love to study. Like even right now I'm a full time student in CUNY. Whenever I see some kind of classes extra knowledge is no extra knowledge. There is no extra knowledge. Especially when you're immigrant, there are so many differences. And it might take only one or two years just to get used to these differences. For example, even like when you need to write a cover letter, there are certain things like where I'm coming from, it's totally different. Like there are so many details like when it comes to resume, like in my country when I was applying for a job, we have to put the picture in my resume and the age and the full home address. And over here in order to avoid these biases in order like for example if HR is looking for your resume in order to be objective no picture, no age, no home address. For me it was weird like at the beginning. And then when I work with my co-workers like when we talk about different things and I say oh I'm a member of Rock United, I'm a member of Rock New York and a lot of people believe me, a lot of people they don't know that this type of organization exist. And how I found out, I was just trying to find some classes in the hospitality industry and I was looking and looking and that's how I came across Rock United and I remember that day when I came and they told me how the organization was founded, it was very touching because of 9-11. And I'm not sure like maybe it's marketing or like just like people, it's better to share your experiences like when I tell this story like oh like this training program, they can help you to find a job, you can find the you can find the class you can find a co-worker, a resume, it's very helpful. Especially like nowadays it's very helpful. And when I found out it was free for me it was like wow, I was very impressed. Whenever like if you need like even like for example you are applying for a job and you got maybe one year experience, two years experience and you want to update your resume Rock United is always for you. And I'm very grateful that you appreciate that. Thank you for your question. I think it really speaks to what you said Danielle around like workers themselves are sometimes the best word of mouth and recruitment for sure. It sounds like we did a good job of explaining ourselves. Thank you. My name is Alibu Samantin. I'm the worker, the director at the World Civil Institute's Worker Power and Economic Security program. And just wanted to actually provide you all with some just remarks as we close this meeting. I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to New America for hosting the Good Jobs Collaborative. And likewise I want to express my gratitude to the event planners who tirelessly were behind the scenes seamlessly bringing us all together. You've heard it here today, read about it and certainly have probably even felt it firsthand. Workers are mobilizing and demanding more of their work. And we need to listen. As a Good Jobs Collaborative we are putting together an effort to center workers and their collective demands at the center of national workforce development policy. The path forward requires us to have vision, research, and most importantly action. We must commit ourselves to the vital task of increasing the stock of good jobs, positions that not only offer fair pay but provide workers with dignity, security, the opportunity for advancement, and certainly unions. These are the jobs that can transform lives and communities and that can build the foundation for a future where economic prosperity is shared by all. I invite each of you to engage with the Good Jobs Collaborative actively. Take part in this opportunity to shape workforce development policy that generally centers workers in the process and that recognizes their fundamental role in the success of our economy and our democracy. I thank you all for your participation today and again I look forward to working together moving forward. Thank you all.


Julia Craven of Slate wrote what I think was a really insightful article where she asks a very interesting question that I hadn't thought about yet. So she asks, will anti-vaxxers take the new COVID treatment pills? Now we're gonna dive into the article because there's actually a lot of nuance to that particular question, but let's just ask ourselves this question. So the anti-vaxxers are the same people that at the start of the pandemic they were also against social distancing and mask wearing. They were against mask mandates. They were against lockdowns. They were against vaccines. They were against vaccine mandates. So I don't think it's unreasonable to logically deduce that these contrarian culture warriors are also going to be against the next important thing that helps us control the pandemic. And really what it's gonna come down to is if they see public health officials and liberal media pundits that they already don't like promote these things they're gonna be against it. If they see right wing charlatans like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, Fearmonger about these pills they're gonna be against it. I don't think that they're going to base their decision on whether or not the data says that these pills are effective and can be a good alternative to vaccines. Not that that's what the data is saying but it's gonna be what their tribe does they'll also do. And remember they already believe that they have a pill that treats COVID. I've remacted. And even though it has not been proven to be effective in treating or preventing COVID-19 there's at least two dozen lawsuits involving hospitals that refused to give ivermectin to patients as a treatment for COVID-19 after they've requested it. So I mean whether they'll reject it it really is an open question but that's even if we assume these pills are going to be alternatives to the vaccines because so far with the evidence that we have and there's not a lot it seems as if these are going to be complimentary to the vaccines not something that you can get in lieu of the vaccines. So Julia Craven breaks it down. She writes Pfizer and Merck have both produced antivirals for COVID-19 that are expected to receive FDA approval in the near future. The pills are five day treatment courses that according to clinical studies dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death. They're also easier for patients to take than the primary currently available treatments for COVID-19 monoclonal antibodies and remdesivir which are delivered through infusion or injection in a clinical setting and both pills are being tested to see if they can prevent infection too. It's a testament to how biomedical science has risen to met the many challenges of the pandemic but will people who are reluctant to take a Pfizer COVID vaccine now happily take a Pfizer COVID pill whether for treatment or prevention and if they don't object to the pill does that mean we have found a way out of the vaccine wars? Well, it depends according to the experts who spoke with Slate until Pfizer and Merck released data on how it could be used to prevent infection both antivirals should be considered as companions to the vaccines remdesivir and monoclonal antibody treatments. These all compliment the vaccines said David Carlisle the president of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science for the vaccines prevent the risk of acquisition of the infection and these treatments prevent people from getting sicker once they get the infection and so both are very good and very important and it's certainly nice that we have two more highly effective arrows in the quiver against COVID-19. Some people sick with COVID are currently refusing medical interventions like inhaled steroids and blood thinners in favor of dubious treatments promoted by anti-vaxxers online. For them, the antivirals could be beneficial especially compared with something like ivermectin which is an effective but popular among COVID skeptics. So in short, we need to see more data in order to make any definitive statement. So I should say the experts need to see more data before they make definitive statements and then what they say I will relay to you but the problem is that let's assume just hypothetically speaking that these pills are actually so effective that if you get sick with COVID these are as effective at preventing death or hospitalization as the vaccine. So if you're anti-vaxxer and you're not vaccinated and you take this you'll be okay. Does that mean that this is a good replacement for the vaccines? Not necessarily because there's another factor that is going to be an issue and that is the cost which will reduce accessibility because indeed the new antivirals are pricing. A five day treatment course is $529 for Pfizer and $700 for Merck and using this as a preventative will be highly dependent upon access to healthcare. A problem in underserved populations whereas the vaccines for COVID-19 are increasingly ubiquitous and free. And so for a lot of people who are consuming misinformation and they choose to not get vaccinated I mean, if they get COVID-19 they don't have the resources that individuals like Joe Rogan or Aaron Rodgers or Tim Pool have. They can't pay thousands of dollars for monoclonal antibodies. They probably can't even pay $500 for the Pfizer pill.  So if it comes down to it are they gonna be able to afford this? Odds are no, but what they can afford is the vaccine. So even if this is a good alternative to the vaccines if you're an anti-vaxxer it's still more ideal for you to get the vaccine but the problem is that saying this using common sense, citing data, it doesn't matter because data statistics that to anti-vaxxers is less influential than what these grifters that they follow say. And that's the issue that we're dealing with here. I mean, you can provide them with endless data. You can show them study after study after study but what this comes down to is trust, right? They just don't trust the government they don't trust these institutions and rightfully so. I mean, it's reasonable to distrust big pharma but the reason why we distrust big pharma is not because they're intentionally poisoning people we distrust them because of their greedy practices. So to answer Julia's question I think the answer honestly is no but there is a caveat. There is some quotes in here from one anti-vaxxer at least that they kind of use as a jumping point to explain the psychology of the anti-vaxx way of thinking and there is a difference between injecting something into you and taking a pill. Psychologically, these are different to people. One is a lot less scary. But still, I mean, if the issue that you're citing is big pharma then you would think that they would just be against all of big pharma and modern medicine more broadly speaking but as we've seen, they trust ivermectin. Now, Merck is the manufacturer of ivermectin so you think, well, since they made this other good COVID treatment which is not a treatment but since they believe that it's a treatment maybe they think, well, the Merck pill is okay but again, it's not about the facts and statistics and that's what I'm really realizing. It's about their cult. It's about this culture that they've created for themselves and whether or not they've actually ranked the Kool-Aid. So overall, the answer is probably not. I don't think they're gonna take the COVID treatments and that's unfortunate because at some point in time I think it'd be really great to end the pandemic so we can kind of get back to life before the pandemic but we'll keep doing the way we can and this should, let me just end with this. This should be a time where we are actually a little bit more optimistic because we see how quickly medical advancements can be made. That's how far we've come as a society where modern medicine is, I mean, it's great. It's saved countless lives. The vaccines have saved literally hundreds of thousands of lives just in the United States but just because we're moving forward in one way doesn't mean that society will continue to move forward because people, they won't accept these changes or they'll be skeptical and other societal factors will change, a reduction in trust in the government, rightfully so. And more people being susceptible to conspiratorial thinking. So either way, I'm not optimistic but the fact that this is an additional option that's available is really good but whether or not, you know, this is something that anti-vaxxers would consider. If I had to guess, I'd say probably not but maybe I'm just too cynical at this point but I mean, you can't really fault me for being cynical when look around. 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