Threading the Past into the Present – ReWork the Bay March Newsletter

My eight-year-old daughter has been learning math in her second-grade class, and I am frequently getting questions like “what happens when you multiply a negative?” Unfortunately for my daughter, I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in grade school math classes (not my favorite subject). Having said that, I do know what happens when you multiply a negative. It becomes an even bigger negative number.

At the beginning of 2023, after four months of offering hospice care in our family home, I said goodbye to my paternal grandmother, who raised me. During her healthy years, she tended to our family in all the grandmotherly ways that you would expect. And as an immigrant who survived several wars in the Philippines, she was a resourceful and feisty lady.

Because of the ways she weaved the past and future together, history always seemed very present to me. Alive even.

Though, to be honest, it wasn’t until my grandmother passed away that I truly saw her as more than one-dimensionally, my grandmother. Unpacking boxes in her closet, I am seeing glimpses into how fully she lived as an immigrant worker, a colleague, and a union member. In fact, I found a treasure trove of receipts to her union membership dues for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union AFL-CIO from 1978 that ranged from $16-25 each month. Buried close by was the 1986 United Garment Workers of America Constitution. There were photos of her and her coworkers smiling in the break room, celebrating each other’s life milestones like engagement parties and birthdays. I also found an album full of photos documenting a work-sponsored trip from a raffle winning that brought her and my grandfather to Los Angeles, CA for the 1984 Summer Olympics!

For nearly 20 years, she proudly worked at Levi Strauss until she retired to take care of her 18 grandchildren…or so they say.

When I take a step back and think of the conditions of our economy at that time, I also am suspicious that her retirement from a localized union job may not have been her choice. This time period was a turning point: it paralleled the disappearance of the garment industry in San Francisco and its outsourcing to overseas factories where labor standards were weak.

My grandmother made choices with the conditions she had to face. One thing is very clear to me as I look at what has been left behind from her paid working days: her job was more than just a job. It gave her a path toward financial independence. It was a source of community. It was a place where her skills were cultivated and shared.

Today, I walk by Levi’s Strauss Plaza as I stroll across the Financial District toward our offices. And I feel my grandmother’s spirit. And her coworkers. And I know that there are so many stories that are untold about their struggle and resilience as they faced exploitation and repression.

The past is not far behind us and, in fact, lives on through us. I realize that my grandmother’s work life is so intertwined with mine. For many reasons, I would not be where I am without her.

The labor movement continues to this day and is facing intensified conditions of globalization and financialization that my grandmother and her coworkers were beginning to see emerge over 20 years ago. From Hello Fresh workers in Richmond, CA, to Amazon workers in Staten Island, NY, workers are standing up as collectives against their big corporation bosses, despite systematic attacks on their livelihoods. Even more broadly, Bargaining for the Common Good is organizing a longer-term vision that brings together community and union members to win a future where we all thrive. These are the legacies that we steward, and they are alive in us through the choices we make together every day.

As for me, I am leaving the ReWork team with the biggest of smiles, knowing I will be carrying this forward into my next chapter. Ultimately, I wonder: what will we be able to tell our future descendants of the conditions we faced and how we responded?

-Sulong (“Onwards” in Tagalog),
Kayla, Brianna, and Rob

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What happens when you multiply a negative?

My eight-year-old daughter has been learning math in her second-grade class, and I am frequently getting questions like “what happens when you multiply a negative?” Unfortunately for my daughter, I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in grade school math classes (not my favorite subject). Having said that, I do know what happens when you multiply a negative. It becomes an even bigger negative number.

What does this have to do with ReWorking the Bay? It seems like every day, we see another news story about massive layoffs happening in the tech sector. Pundits wage predictions on whether this is a sign of an impending recession, the potential impact of tech layoffs on the housing market, and what key insights we should take away from what’s happening in Big Tech.

What is notably absent are stories about the impact of these tech layoffs, which predominantly impact white men, on the workers who rely on the disposable income of tech workers for their jobs.

Which brings me back to multiplying a negative. A 2022 report found that each tech job created results in the creation of approximately 4 and a half local jobs in sectors that produce goods and services that are consumed in the same region where they are produced, such as health care, restaurants, education, hotels, personal services, and (to a lesser extent) construction. These jobs tend to be lower paid and more frequently held by women and people of color.

So what happens when you apply that 4x multiplier to job losses instead of gains? It’s hard to pin down the number of tech jobs in the Bay Area that have gone away in this recent round of layoffs. For argument’s sake, let’s say 10,000 tech workers have gotten laid off. Based on the tech multiplier effect, that would mean over 40,000 jobs in other sectors could be eliminated!

We care about tech workers, and we wouldn’t wish a layoff on anyone. What concerns us is the lack of attention paid by the media to the impact of these tech layoffs on some of the lowest-paid workers in our region, who are less likely to have the ability to weather unemployment and are in far greater numbers.

The Bay Area is not just Big Tech, but our reliance on it to drive our economy means that it has an outsized impact on all of us, not just tech workers. In times like this, where the tech multiplier effect means a much larger negative impact on our regions’ workers than other sectors, we need to name that, collect and share data to understand it and talk about whether the boom and bust tech sector can create an equitable Bay Area economy.

In community,
Rob, Kayla + Brianna

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By now, you know who we are. You know what we want to achieve. And you know how committed we are to creating an equitable Bay Area that works for everyone.

Through tools and collaborations like the Equity at Work Council and State of Bay Area Workers, we are seeing a clearer picture of the complex challenges and opportunities we face. And while we have plenty to learn about what it will take to ReWork the Bay, one thing we know for certain is that our success will be determined by the people who do the work, on the ground, every day. Like the intake specialist who welcomes the single mother from Burma who speaks little English into a career center to pursue employment.

Beyond just a greeting, that intake specialist is charged with delicately and skillfully asking the program participant about their life up to that point. What challenges have they faced in getting and keeping a job in the past? How much education have they completed? Have they been incarcerated, or struggled with drugs or alcohol? Do they have children? These questions often lead to hard conversations about trauma and other life challenges, which can in turn cause compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma in workforce providers.

This year, ReWork is excited to partner with public and non-profit organizations across California to explore how our frontline, client-facing workforce development staff at organizations are faring. Do they have the support needed to maintain their mental and physical health as they help others maintain theirs? Are they able to access the kinds of career advancement support they provide their clients? Do they get paid enough and have the benefits needed to support themself and their family? If not, what can organizational leadership, funders and policymakers do differently to make their job a quality, empowered job?

With our new statewide project, Improving Job Quality for Frontline Workforce Providers, your organization can help us advance the field’s understanding of client-facing workforce providers’ needs and identify practical strategies to better address them. Together, we can ensure that frontline workers have the resources, capacities, supports, infrastructure, and relationships they need to truly thrive in their field. Click here to learn more about how your organization can apply to join this important work.

Help us ReWork the Bay.

In Community,

Rob, Kayla, and Brianna

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We walked into the year ready to reimagine work and doubled down on partnerships to create a Bay Area that works for everyone. We grew our small but mighty team in the spring, welcoming Brianna Rogers as our Associative Initiative Officer. We then debuted the State of Bay Area Workers data tool. This tool built on the 2021 Advancing Workforce Equity in the Bay Area report, providing insightful context for labor statistics. With it, community leaders, organizers, policymakers, funders, and others can create informed strategies, policies, and practices that improve the lives of Bay Area workers. This real-time data tool also helped tell the whole story of workers displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In partnership with a powerful coalition of worker organizations, we took the common threads of those stories and launched the Bay Area Essential Workers Agenda in May. The agenda outlined a four-pillar platform for achieving true economic recovery and has been endorsed by 26 organizations. In making the agenda, 1,400 workers from a dozen industries shared what the pandemic cost them. Stories like theirs were presented to the nation in the Buzzfeed video series “Normal ain’t Normal,” co-produced by Rosario Dawson. Though this heart-wrenching, thought-inducing series follows fictional Oaklandites through the brokenness of the new normal, it’s not far from the actual reality many Bay Area families face.

Helping people navigate the stress of the pandemic is hard, and hearing their frustrations as they hit roadblock after roadblock is even harder. Client-facing workers at job training and placement programs need more support and better pay to do their best work. So in the fall, we partnered with the Irvine Foundation to launch a $2 million statewide project to improving job quality for frontline workforce providers (make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to receive the early January 2023 RFP to partner with us on this project).

What we are doing to serve the community works. Our wins in the Bay Area are replicable, scalable, and corroborated. We need to tell the world that this reimagined future is possible. So, we presented our successes at The Center for Transformative Action, SHIFT the Future of Workforce, and Workforce Matters Further Together Conference.

The future of the Bay Area is one where everyone has access to quality, empowered jobs that allow them to benefit from and shape the region’s growing economy. It is possible for everyone to live full lives with security, dignity, and agency in our work, home, and communities. We know this because we are doing it.

Join us in 2023. Let’s ReWork the Bay together.

In Community,

Rob, Kayla, & Brianna

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Technology weaves in and out of our lives in myriad ways. There’s a 73% chance that you are reading this month’s newsletter from the palm of your hand. And if that’s the case, we are willing to guess that you ordered today’s lunch, bought a transit pass, or added a holiday gift to your shopping cart from your smartphone as well. For some, technology is how work gets done. For others, it’s how life gets done. As one of our strongest connections to the rest of the world, smartphones and the internet carried some of us through the worst parts of the COVID-19 pandemic through memes and solidarity. On the other side, the tech industry has dramatically widened income inequality, concentrated wealth and power among a shrinking number of predominantly white men, and disproportionately harmed low-wage workers.

As we approach the third year in which Normal Ain’t Normal, the big business of tech is solidly an integral part of our lives and economies. Approaching the next inflection point on this journey to recovery, can we retool our relationship with tech and create systems that work equitably for all of us?

Absolutely!

Throughout all the wariness, this time is ripe for recreating industries, reimagining housing, and reinventing how and for whom the Bay works. We are excited about a future where everyone has access to quality, empowered jobs that allow them to benefit from and shape the new normal. We are ecstatic to use tech for the greatest good and make it possible for everyone to live full lives with security, dignity, and agency in our work, home and communities. We can’t wait to ReWork the Bay.

In Community,

Rob, Kayla, & Brianna

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Home is a heavy concept. As a noun, it’s pretty easy to point one out, but things get murky when we explore it as a feeling. Home is jumping off the last step on the school bus and running full speed to catch up with your friends so you all can walk together. Home is knowing which burner on the stove is the tricky one. Home is knowing that Ms. Gladys on the 3rd floor walks to church every Sunday and going up to knock when you don’t hear her come down the steps. Home is sacred, but just as quickly as you can create one, it can be taken from you.

In 2020, California began taking steps toward making families whole again. Assembly Bill 3121 established the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. “AB 3121 charges the Reparations Task Force with studying the institution of slavery and its lingering negative effects on living African Americans, including descendants of persons enslaved in the United States, and on society. Additionally, the Task Force will recommend appropriate remedies of compensation, rehabilitation, and restitution for African Americans, with a special consideration for descendants of persons enslaved in the United States. By statute, the Task Force will issue a report to the Legislature by June 1, 2022, which will be available to the public.” (The report is done and it’s [appropriately] 500 pages long).

Through this bill, families like the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce have an avenue to win their fight for home. Earlier this year, The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to return Bruce’s Beach, a popular Black resort in 1920’s Manhattan Beach City, to the family of the owners. “As we move to remedy this nearly century-old injustice, California takes another step furthering our commitment to making the California Dream a reality for communities that were shamefully shut out by a history of racist exclusion,” Governor Newsom said. “We know our work is just beginning to make amends for our past, and California will not shy from confronting the structural racism and bias that people of color face to this day.”

We agree wholeheartedly. The work to remedy the injustice of the past–a necessity prior to realize a just and inclusive future–is just beginning. Rising rents, gentrification, and climate change remain daily threats to the sanctity of our homes. It’s time to build a new future for the Bay Area, one where everyone can live full lives with security, dignity, and agency in our work, home, and communities. It’s time to craft a world where good hard work translates into bright futures for current and future generations. It’s time to ReWork the Bay.

Ready to join us? Check out our website to see how we are showing up for that future and what you can do to help (and while you are there, check out the State of Bay Area Workers Data Tool!).

In Community,

Rob, Kayla, & Brianna

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On June 28, 1894, Congress declared the first Monday in September a Federal holiday: Labor Day. While it has evolved into a three-day weekend that primarily celebrates the end of summer with grilled food and gatherings, we want to remember America’s Labor Movement and the sacrifices that everyday people made in hopes of gaining security, dignity, and agency at work. From the Pullman Railroad Strike of 1984 to unionizing efforts by Starbucks and Amazon workers today, the 200-year fight for workers’ rights is nowhere close to being over. This month, we celebrate the progress that has been made while recognizing that we still have so much further to go. Below are a few suggestions for learning more about where we’ve been and where our continued fight will take us in the future.

Bring the Past to the Present.

Take some time to reflect on the hopes, dreams, and struggles of workers who fought before us, taking brave leaps of faith to secure a future they may have never experienced. Check out this episode of the Belabored podcast about Fred Ross, a community organizer whose efforts bolstered the work of pivotal figures like Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.

Explore our Roots

Check out Kim Kelly’s book, Fight Like Hell, to learn about the folks on the frontlines of the labor movement whose stories were cut from the history books. Join a live discussion with the author and share your thoughts at the virtual book club meeting.
(Image credit: SimonandSchuster.com)

Fight for the Future

Examine your own experience with work. What role does it play in your life? How are companies showing up in and for your community? Is your organization primed to embrace a fair and just economy? Reflect on your organization’s culture and practices, and see how they align with your rights and needs as a worker. Check out the Bay Area’s Essential Worker’s Agenda for inspiration.

By learning from those who blazed trails before us and partnering together to find collaborative solutions, we can win the fight for a just and equitable Bay Area economy!

In Community,

Rob, Kayla, & Brianna

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In Jordan Peele’s new movie Nope, a pair of siblings take on the challenge of saving their family’s stunt horse business. It sounds easy enough, but absurd barriers block every step of their way. From OJ’s (Daniel Kaluuya) stoic reticence to the bug-eyed little men who are clearly not of planet earth, the duo’s task becomes herculean nearly overnight.

We understand their pain.

In our shared commitment to ensure that the Bay Area economy gives back more than it takes from workers and their families, we’ve jumped stomach-turning hurdles. This work is hard. It is long, and it is challenging. So much needs to be done that it’s tempting to drift into hopelessness. The problems we wrestle with can appear so large and all-encompassing that the sheer overwhelm of it all can cloud the vision. It’s scary to demand change, and it’s even scarier to point out what’s wrong in our picture of the world. It’s risky to witness all the hurt and pain in our community and then decide to do something about it.

In a recent interview, when asked how he had the courage to create his breakthrough film Get Out, which explores racism through the lens of a horror movie, Peele responded:“Embrace the risk that only you can take.”

When you have something so special that it could change the world, when you have more positional power and privilege or access to resources than others, you must be willing to take that first step into the chaos. With every step you move forward, you’ll find resources and allies who will bolster you in the fight. Keep going, and you’ll see milestones of progress. Don’t be afraid to feel your way through the murkiness and find like-minded people who are ready to join you in realizing the change we desperately need. It’s the momentum of those first small steps that will propel you into ReWorking the Bay!

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In true David and Goliath fashion, workers recently achieved a major win in federal court against the Starbucks corporation. After several team members were allegedly terminated for participating in union organizing, the National Labor Relations Board filed an injunction petition to have terminated employees reinstated- and won!

Oftentimes fear of retaliation prevents workers from embracing their collective power and organizing with their colleagues. It is not uncommon for employers deploy all manner of scare tactics, including slander, lawsuits, and threats, to prevent workers from fighting against unfair labor practices.

Thankfully there is strength in numbers, and united nothing can slow the progression of justice.

Starbucks Workers United’s (SWU) success in Buffalo has inspired workers across the country with baristas in Arizona and Tennessee pursuing collective organizing. When workers recognize and amplify their collective power through unionizing, not only are they able to unite to protect their labor but they are also able to hold companies accountable for unfair labor practices.

Organizing is a threat to companies that eschew worker safety in exchange for their bottom lines. Allegedly, in retaliation for SWU’s success, Starbucks has fired pro-union employees in Buffalo, Arizona, and Memphis. Now that a collective bargaining unit exists to protect these workers, SWU is able to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to fight on behalf of their reinstatement. The NLRB petitioned a U.S Federal Court in Western New York for “a nationwide cease and desist order” to stop Starbucks from taking further action against pro-union employees.

“We are asking the court to swiftly grant the injunction so that the unlawfully discharged workers can return to work and effectively exercise their right to engage in union activities, including collectively bargaining a union contract,” said NLRB Region 3-Buffalo Regional Director Linda M. Leslie. The petition asked that the court require Starbucks to “halt their [anti-union] efforts” at all of its U.S. stores, including offering benefits to non-union stores, threatening reprisals for employees who support unionization, refusing to bargain with stores that have voted to unionize, and temporarily or permanently closing stores.

“We had a good deep breath that we could finally take because of it,” said Angel Krempa, pictured above, a former Starbucks employee in Buffalo who alleged she was fired for her involvement in union organizing. “It’s exciting to see that the NLRB is taking action for us finally. And we’re just hoping that this continues to move forward in the way that it should be.”

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With graduation season underway, students across the country are preparing to launch into the “real world” with an eye toward using their talents to build better futures. And they are not going to let student loans hold them back.

America’s massive student debt crisis has left 44 million people across all demographics scrambling to pay nearly $2 trillion dollars in debt. This student debt crisis hurts everyone, but with compounding effects from prohibitive housing prices, low wages, rampant inflation, and back-to-back recessions, young people are experiencing even greater challenges grasping their slice of the American Dream. In an effort to protect the prosperity of their future, students and young worker leaders are fighting to pursue their dreams without the specter of debt.

• The Alliance for Youth Action’s “Dreams not Debt” campaign is organizing students across the country to engage their representatives at the local level and drive policy change around student debt, including putting pressure on the Biden Administration to keep its debt cancellation campaign promise.
• In 2006, a group of recent college grads who were fed up with the status quo of Colorado politics started New Era Colorado, with a mission is to engage, educate, and train a new generation of active young leaders in Colorado. Their “Broke AF” campaign spurred the passage of Colorado’s Student Loan Equity Act which protects borrowers by outlawing common lender practices like robo-signing, auto-defaults, and harassment of family members after the death or disability of the borrower.
• San Francisco Rising has developed a school-to-organizing pathway that equips students with strategic, culturally-relevant organizing skills to help communities of color advocate for their interests. Summer Rising Fellows across the bay area are learning how to engage the community to demand free public college for all and student debt cancellation.

These organizations are just a few examples that demonstrate young peoples’ determination to impact policy-making, spread awareness, and garner community support around reforming a higher education system that’s failing their generation. Join us in encouraging and celebrating this important work that aligns with our efforts to ensure shared prosperity for all.

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