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Category Archives: Campaigns & Organizing
About Our Campaigns and Organizing
BWA is a member-led organization, which means that our members determine the direction and goals of our campaign. BWA members are under- and unemployed residents who organize to create good jobs for our community and achieve social and economic justice for all.
BWA has 4 member-led Campaign Committees: CORI Reform Committee; Green Jobs Committee; Economic Justice Committee; Civic Engagement. Each campaign has short and long term goals and campaigns. As a movement building organization, we also support the campaigns of ally organizations.
In 2010, BWA helped pass landmark reforms to our state’s CORI laws. (learn more)
- CORI Reform Campaign: info about history and status of CORI laws, photos from BWA’s successful 5 year campaign
- Boston CORI Ordinance Reform: BWA wants to add enforcement teeth to Boston’s CORI law that affects thousands of the City’s vendors and contracted businesses
- ”Ban the Box” Enforcement: Starting in November 2010, residents can report corporations that have the criminal history question on their job applications to the BWA for enforcement
- Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform: BWA members are in a strategic planning process to launch a new campaign that address our state’s crisis of over-incarceration, and makes changes to police, probation, parole and prison practices.
GREEN JOBS COMMITTEE:
BWA launched a Green Collar Jobs Program in 2008 to ensure that new jobs in the growing Green Economy were good, CORI friendly jobs that were available to our community. (learn more)
Campaign for Home Weatherization: A campaign to create good green jobs through increased home weatherization opportunities that reduce heating bills and lower global warming pollution.
Boston Recycling Coalition: A new collaborative campaign to explore job creation opportunities by increasing the city’s recycling rates
(this page is under construction - stay tuned for updates!)
CORI Workshop at Alliance for Cambridge Tenants (ACT)
On Friday April 4th, 2014 the Boston Workers Alliance staff went across the water to work with the Alliance of Cambridge Tenants (ACT) putting on a “How to Help Seal My CORI” workshop. There was good attendance from community tenants of the Washington Elms Housing Development. It was a lively crowd of mature adults who had a number of very interesting questions about CORI in relation to jobs, housing, and hospitals. This workshop was put together by concerned citizens of Pisani Center in Cambridge. They felt that not enough is being done to explain and empower locals around the new state CORI reform legislation that went into effect May 5, 2012.
The workshop facilitator Hakim Cunningham has been a long time CORI reform advocate, he went through a PowerPoint presentation with the residents of Washington Elms explaining the nuances of the new CORI legislation and how community residents can best navigate them. There was food, drinks and pizza, mixed with lively dialogue provided by ACT. It was a 2 hour workshop that begged the question, “why aren’t there more workshops like this happening around the state for local residents to be informed about how to empower themselves through the new CORI reform legislation of 2012.”
What a representative had to say about the workshop:
“The ease, the comfort [Hakim] made us all feel was uplifting. [He has] empowered and enlightened us with the depth of [his] knowledge on CORI and CORI reform.”
“You gave us critical feedback that if we find ourselves faced with a CORI record to “Stay Calm” to be “PATIENT” not “IMPATIENT” “IMPATIENCE breeds ANGER” because to embark on the process of having to seal a CORI can be stressful enough.
Hakim Cunningham
Deputy Director
Boston Workers Alliance
Second Chance Program Community Blog
Speakers and Coordinators
Tracy Parks
Chuck Turner
Hakim Cunningham
Cherise Franklin
Kenneth Gerald
Dexter Muhammad
Today was a great day in labor and community organizing history, 13 men sat around a table at 140 Winthrop St. Roxbury, MA at the Macomber Learning Center and discussed how to get younger African - American men and women into the skilled trades unions. They took it a step further and posed the question, “Why can’t we work in our own city with billions of dollars of construction breaking ground all over Boston?” The young men were joined by older and experienced journeymen from the Laborers, Tapers, Electricians and Bricklayers Unions who made the younger guys aware that there is politics that goes with the trades.
The Second Chance Program is strategizing to start small with 3 local family homes and scale up to commercial building renovations across the city. The energy surrounding the table stemmed from the common goal of finding ways to teach and train ourselves. Former City Councilor Chuck Turner said, “Our ability to win or lose is all in our minds. We have the determination and will to achieve and leave a legacy for the next generation; then our jobs are not fought for in vain.” The Second Chance Program is looking to have local contractors who are licensed and Masters in their trade to come out and teach the youth the skills they have acquired over the years.
David Johnson a Master Sheet Metal Worker of Barnette Plumbing & Heating said he is willing to bring all of his talent to the table, to help the plight and causes of young black men and women who want to do what’s right to provide for their family’s. The meeting was scheduled for 1 hour but it went well over an 1 hour and a half once the blood and creativity around the table started to bubble and rise to the top of the dialogue. Stay tune for the next Second Chance Program Construction meeting it looks like we are just getting started.
Program Coordinator
Hakim Cunningham
Second Chance At a Success
Today was a great day in community activism through the efforts of Tracy Parks Boston Workers Alliance Board Chair, Chuck Turner and Hakim Cunningham – Director of Labor & Human Rights. We were invited by Richard Forciani to the Allied Bricklayers Union in Dorchester to take a tour of the facility for apprentices. In attendance were brothers and sister who signed up at the Boston Workers Alliance an was input into the BWA Construction Worker Database. The Second Chance program wants to get more minorities into the union while developing more local African- American and Latino Contractors to address the needs of the BRJP in Boston. Stay tuned for more updates and progress from Boston Workers Alliance and the Second Chance Program.