BWA leads over 1,000 people from Roxbury to the State House in the historic “March for Jobs and CORI Reform” (April 19, 2007)
BWA was formed in September 22, 2005 at a large meeting of jobless workers at the 12th Baptist Church in Roxbury. We agreed to unite for the uplift our community by building powerful collective challenges to the crisis of unemployment. Our two immediate priorities involved fighting CORI discrimination and forming a BWA temp agency.
In this organization, our members work to improve their job situations by developing the necessary skills and resources to find work. At the same time, it is clear that job training and business resumes are useless if no one is hiring. We recognize that unless we demand a societal change to have fair work for all, members of our community will be forced to compete, like crabs in a barrel, for fewer and lower-paying jobs. When we unite, we are fighting for more than a paycheck. We are fighting for jobs for our youth and stable work that we can raise our families on.
If you’re unemployed, working two jobs & still not making it, can’t get a job because of your CORI, or just sick & tired of being “sick & tired,” please join us—tell your story, fight for CORI reform and jobs.
Mission
Boston Workers Alliance (BWA) is a community organization whose members are led by unemployed and underemployed residents fighting for employment rights. We have united to end CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) discrimination and the crisis of joblessness in the community. We fight for economic and racial justice by demanding decent jobs for all people who want to work.
The ability to live productively and raise our families in peace is a right. As we walk towards our freedom, we build strength and hope through cooperation, political awareness and collective action. The Boston Workers Alliance is of the people, not of the government or corporations. We organize to overcome the violent forces that oppose our full potential to live.
Structure
The BWA has 5 sub committees: Outreach, CORI Reform, Job Creation, Legislative and Media. All active BWA members meet as a Planning Committee on the 1st Thursday of every month from 5pm-7pm at the Freedom House (14 Crawford St). A Steering Committee composed of representatives from the sub committees meet on the last Thursday of every month.
BWA Staff
Aaron Tanaka, Organizer / Director
[email protected]
Aaron came to Boston in 2000 from the San Francisco Bay Area. As a student at Harvard College, he earned a B.A. in Social Studies with a focus on the US Prison Industrial Complex. As an undergraduate, he was the Co-Founder and Director of the Harvard Progressive Advocacy Group, an organization that lends student resources and support to community led campaigns for justice in areas of prison reform, affordable housing and equal education. Aaron also interned at the American Friends Service Committee’s Criminal Justice Program, working on prison reform issues to shut down long-term solitary confinement units in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. He has also worked in Washington D.C. at an environmental lobby firm on anti-nuclear power campaigns. Aaron is also a documentary videographer, and is a Masters candidate in Community Economic Development at S. New Hampshire University.
Sponsor
The Boston Workers Alliance is a Fund the Dream organizing initiative of the D7 Roundtable, Inc..
D7 Roundtable hosts a community discussion and lunch on the 3rd Saturday of every month, from 10am-12:30pm at the 1st Church of Roxbury. Topics have ranged from prisons and restorative justice, to unemployment, quality healthcare, equitable education, affordable housing, militarism and war. All are welcome!
D7 Roundtable and the BWA are generously supported by the UU Fund for a Just Society, the Anita L. Mishler Education Fund, the Hyams Foundation, the Burgess Urban Fund, the Stride Rite Foundation, Resist Inc, the Haymarket People’s Fund and a number of personal anonymous donors.
