Four Ways to Lift Up Women of Color in the Workforce

Ensuring the economic success of women of color has never been more crucial to America's future. Though women of color make up a large and growing share of the workers, breadwinners, and entrepreneurs that are driving local and regional economies, they are consistently paid less than all other groups of workers — White women, men of color, and White men [see graph above]. Further, women of color are all too frequently employed in low-wage jobs that fail to provide family-supporting wages or basic benefits such as paid parental and sick leave.

"More than 70 percent of women of color are either the sole or co-breadwinner, making their economic security inextricably linked to that of their family," said Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center.

Tackling the disparities in pay and employment facing women of color will require policies at the national, state, and local level that link these women to the education, workforce training, business support, and work opportunities necessary to thrive. Several cities and states have taken pioneering steps to enact the types of policies and programs that lift up women of color workers, providing models for other local, state, and federal initiatives. These local successes center around four policy priorities:

(1)   Improve the quality and wages of low-wage jobs: Because women of color are disproportionately employed in the low-wage sector and live in or near poverty, strategies to raise the floor on low-wage work can have immediate impact for these women and their families. Effective policies to raise the floor include those that encourage workplaces to invest in their workers (e.g., programs that upgrade workers' skills and pay) or make it easier for workers to organize and collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions. "You are seeing some companies recognize the value of investing in their workers — that it is valuable for workers to feel good about their workplace and be able to fill their roles at home," Goss Graves said.

Policies that directly establish higher standards for wages and working conditions, such as increasing minimum and living wages, eliminating the sub-minimum tipped wage, and providing paid sick leave, child care supports, and retirement savings are also vital to increasing the pool of quality low-wage jobs. In September 2014, after a two-year campaign by community, labor, and civil rights groups, the Los Angeles City Council approved a living wage ordinance to raise the minimum wage for the city's hotel workers to $15.37 an hour. This will raise pay for 13,000 low-income hotel workers, most of them women and people of color. 

(2)   Create pathways for women of color to access good jobs: Women of color often face barriers to accessing "middle-wage" jobs that offer career pathways but do not require a four-year degree, such as those in construction or some health care. Targeted and local hiring policies for public investments can increase access to middle-wage jobs for women of color, as can workforce training strategies that connect women of color to apprenticeship programs and workforce training programs in high-growth industries.

The Washington State's Home Care Worker Training Partnership is the nation's first large-scale career pathway program for home care aides, training 40,000 aides a year in 200 classrooms across the state and online, providing instruction in 13 languages. The partnership runs the nation's first registered apprenticeship for more advanced training so that aides can increase their earnings and move up the career ladder.

(3)   Support women of color to become entrepreneurs: Despite many barriers to quality employment, women of color are the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs and job creators, numbering 1.4 million workers and generating more than $220 billion in revenues in 2013. At the same time, numerous studies show that women of color have a harder time getting business loans or equity investments than their White and male counterparts. Policies that increase access to affordable capital, support business development for entrepreneurs of color, and leverage government procurement policies to link women of color-owned businesses to government contracts are all effective strategies for supporting these entrepreneurs, and helping them create employment opportunities within their communities.

The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority has dramatically increased contracting with firms owned by women and people of color from 11 to 31 percent as part of a new commitment to equity.  

(4)   Ensure girls of color can succeed in school and access science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers: Higher education (at least an associate, if not a bachelor's degree) is a critical stepping stone for success in the 21st century job market, but girls of color often face challenges accessing high-quality preK-12 public education and are more likely to attend schools that lack STEM-related courses. Many girls of color are also subject to overly harsh school discipline measures that result in disproportionately high rates of suspensions and expulsions, reducing their learning time and ability to thrive in school, according to Goss Graves. Policies to eliminate the use of harsh school discipline measures, increase access to high-quality public education and STEM courses, and supplemental programming that exposes girls of color to STEM-related skills and experiences are key to setting girls of color on a track toward later career success and financial stability.

Black Girls CODE is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to training and empowering girls of color to become leaders and innovators in computer science and technology. In the three years since its founding, it has served more than 3,000 girls ages seven through 17 and opened seven chapters around the country.

For more data on women of color in the economy, such as the percentage of people of color who earn $15 an hour or more, see the National Equity Atlas.

Read the rest of the May 15, 2015 America's Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Take a Tour of the Portal

The Healthy Food Access Portal is a resource to individuals, organizations, and institutions dedicated to improving access to affordable, healthy foods in underserved communities. Since its launch, tens of thousands of people across the country have benefited from its wealth of resources, tools, and analysis.

The movement to create a more equitable food system in the United States is taking off and we are thrilled the portal has been a valuable resource to so many of you.

Below are just a few things you can do:

We hope you continue to use HealthyFoodAccess.org. Follow us on Twitter @accessfood to share your thoughts.

How Three Cities Are Building Stronger Economies by Investing in Black Men

Summer jobs orientation in Omaha, Nebraska.

Black men have experienced the biggest declines in labor force participation in recent years. Reconnecting them, and boys and men of color more generally, to career paths and good jobs is critical for building a strong workforce and strengthening the economy as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age.

That reality inspired the White House My Brother's Keeper initiative. But long before President Obama brought national attention to this, grassroots activists, business executives, and civic and government leaders across the country have worked to reverse decades of racial inequities and expand access to opportunity. Like the President, these partnerships recognize that equity and inclusion are important not only for those who have been left behind, but also for the growth and prosperity of communities and cities.

Today, America's Tomorrow profiles inspiring initiatives in Milwaukee, Omaha, and Los Angeles that are leading the way in creating policies and programs to connect Black men to employment training, good jobs, and opportunities to contribute and succeed. The efforts show what's possible when leaders have the courage to talk frankly about structural racism and do something about it, by aligning investments and resources with the needs of the most vulnerable populations.

Milwaukee: Creating hope and a pipeline of workers

The recent groundbreaking for the $450 million 32-story Northwest Mutual Life Tower and Commons Project was a signature moment for Milwaukee's downtown. The development will create or retain thousands of permanent jobs and generate millions of dollars in increased tax revenues. Meanwhile, construction will create more than 1,000 jobs through 2017. At least 40 percent of those jobs are reserved for local residents, and dozens of chronically unemployed men are well positioned to fill them, thanks to a program called Milwaukee Builds.

Administered by the city in collaboration with several nonprofits, the program provides on-the-job training and apprenticeships in the building trades to people returning from prison. It serves about 125 people annually, 90 percent of them Black men, city officials say. Divided into crews, participants build and rehabilitate houses and community centers while earning the certification employers demand and developing the skills employers need.

Milwaukee Builds is one part of a multipronged effort to tackle inequities that have saddled the city's Black men with some of the highest unemployment rates and lowest school completion rates in the nation. Over half of young Black men in Milwaukee are unemployed, and one in four have less than a high school diploma or equivalent. Yet Black men make up over 30 percent of the male population in the city, making their success an imperative for the city's economic future.

Propelling the work are city leaders willing to study social and economic data by race to understand what's holding back significant numbers of people of color — and to use that information to guide policies and investments to achieve equitable results.

Mayor Tom Barrett and the city council took the first step by establishing an advisory board on Black male achievement. What's more, they did so by statute, to signal "it's not for the season, it's for the long haul," said Steve Mahan, the city's director of community grants administration.

The board's mission is "to create hope and opportunities for Black men and boys who are significantly marginalized from economic, social, education, and political life." The language has changed the conversation about the most effective way to target resources among communities in greatest need.

"Being more free to have that discussion — to say "Black males" — was a huge policy change," Mahan said. "To say, we're not talking about census tracts, we're not talking about special districts, we're talking about a set population and we're deliberately aligning our resources and our attention with the needs of that population — that's really huge."

The city has aligned a host of programs in family support, education, health, youth development, and workforce training. "What we're doing is creating a pipeline of workers," said Clifton Crump, special assistant to the mayor.

Omaha: Empowering and hiring young adults

Eight years ago a group called the Empowerment Network launched a summer jobs program in North Omaha, the historic heart of the city's Black community, in hopes of reducing gun violence. Thirty young people participated. Since then, the program has grown to serve as many as 850 youth in a summer, and summertime gun violence in the area has declined by 65 percent, said Empowerment Network President Willie Barney. Youth earn up to $1,500 for the season and participate in career exploration, work experience, on-the-job training, and academic enrichment. Over 3,000 have been hired through Step-Up Omaha and other employment initiatives.

Robust partnerships have helped the Empowerment Network leverage the summer job experience to create opportunities for vocational training, and the collaboration is now incorporating high-growth sectors such as health care, information technology, entrepreneurship, and finance.

"We have some employers that wouldn't have given that person a chance previously, but now the 90-day intern has proven himself," said Barney. "We have individuals working in banks, at hotels, and at other corporations. Hundreds have graduated and many have secured longer term employment. That's having a direct impact on diversifying the employment base, and it's putting income in their pockets."

The community invested first. Now, the city, along with corporate partners and philanthropists, have made significant investments in expanding the summer program, based on commitments to building a competitive workforce in a region quickly becoming more multiracial and multicultural. At 12 percent, the Black unemployment rate in the region was more than double the rate for any other demographic during the 2008 to 2012 period (the most recent timeframe for regional employment data by race). Black households represent a smaller share of the middle class than they did in 1979, and one in three live in poverty. An analysis by PolicyLink and PERE found that the region's GDP would be $3.9 billion higher if racial disparities in income were erased.

The summer program, along with policy changes, and a long list of other initiatives to improve opportunities in communities of color — including the Black population and the growing Latino population — emerged out of an extraordinary public engagement process spearheaded by the Empowerment Network in 2006. Through surveys, polling, and neighborhood meetings, the Network has engaged 5,000 residents, including 2,000 youth and young adults, to articulate their greatest needs, their assets, and their vision for their communities and their city.

That process enabled the Network to identify seven priority areas for action — with employment and entrepreneurship as number one — and develop goals, benchmarks, and measures to track results. The Network has engaged more than 500 community partners from just about every field — schools, police, churches, health care, transportation, the arts, and more. The collective goal is to create a strong, unified city by closing longstanding gaps in education, employment, business ownership, and quality of life based on race and zip code.

Los Angeles: Black workers build power, reshape the construction industry

The $2.4 billion Crenshaw/LAX light rail line under construction in Los Angeles is designed to connect neighborhoods — including the disinvested communities of color of South LA — to the airport, a major job center. But the project employed almost no Black workers until a determined group of Black trade unionists, activists, residents, scholars, and faith leaders campaigned to change that.

Now, nearly 20 percent of the 125 workers, including three women, are Black.

Much of the success is due to advocacy and monitoring by the four-year-old Black Worker Center. In a city where 54 percent of Black men ages 16-21 are jobless, and 30 percent of Black workers are in low-wage industries, the Center brings together workers and advocates to fight for increased access to high-quality employment.

"We work to contest the myth that Black men don't want to work, to resist the Black jobs crisis that is ravaging the social fabric of our community, and to create from the bottom up intentional strategies to deal with this crisis," said Lola Smallwood Cuevas, chair, Los Angeles Black Worker Center Coordinating Committee. "Workforce development alone is not the solution to the Black job crisis. We must build the leadership of Black workers and the power to move our vision forward."

The Center focuses on the construction industry, a source of well-paying union jobs that has largely shut out Blacks in Los Angeles, as in many other communities nationwide. The Center pushes for enforcement of civil rights laws, and its leaders are unafraid to call out racial barriers and biases that exclude people of color from pipelines to career-path employment.

"When we lift up the most vulnerable, which in our community is Black men and young Black men in particular, we will improve Los Angeles overall," said Smallwood Cuevas. "Jobs matter. When Black workers have done well, our communities have done well."

The Black Worker Center was part of a coalition that negotiated a historic project labor agreement with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 2012. The five-year agreement requires that 40 percent of an estimated 23,000 transit construction jobs go to local residents from very low- to moderate-income neighborhoods, with 10 percent of those jobs targeted at "disadvantaged workers" such as veterans, the long-term unemployed, and formerly incarcerated people. It is the nation's first master project labor agreement approved by a regional transportation agency.

The Black Worker Center quickly went to work to bring the early phase of the Crenshaw light rail project into compliance. The Center has developed a robust community monitoring tool, training volunteers in observational field work, data collection, site safety, and deploying teams to construction sites to systematically count workers by race and gender and monitor safety. The Center reports its findings to the public, quarterly.

The progress on Crenshaw is just the beginning. The Center has helped establish similar centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Baltimore, and others are being planned through the National Black Worker Center Network. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, some $60 billion has been allocated for major infrastructure investments, said Loretta Stevens, co-Executive Director of the Center.

"That's a lot of jobs, that's a lot of public money, so how do we get to the table and be included? We're trying to make sure that we're not absent and that we're changing the structures, the institutionalized racism, and really challenging policymakers and politicians to speak up for diversity, stand up for fairness and equity for all."

The efforts profiled above, as well as many others, have been supported by national initiatives such as Communities Collaborating to Reconnect Youth and the Campaign for Black Male Achievement. To learn more, contact the Campaign.

How the Proposed Fair Housing Rule Will Boost the Economy

Strong and effective fair housing laws are essential for building prosperity — for people struggling to get by, for local and regional economies that benefit from thriving communities, and for the nation as a whole. That’s why a proposed rule by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is so important. As inequality soars and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are on the rise in most American cities, the rule would push municipalities to deliver on the promise of fair housing. By helping to connect low-income families to neighborhoods of greater opportunity, the rule has the potential to spur economic growth not only within these households, but within cities and regions.

The rule, due out this summer, is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). It would sharpen the tools that equity advocates and public sector leaders can use to increase investment in high-poverty neighborhoods, fight racial discrimination in the housing market, and add more affordable housing choices in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools, and other essentials. It would do this in three important ways:

(1)  It would make municipalities more accountable to community member needs by requiring resident engagement on fair housing and community development issues.
     
(2)  It would require a data-driven analysis (an "assessment of fair housing") of community conditions and impediments to fair housing, including factors that contribute to areas of racially concentrated poverty and high unemployment (e.g., school performance, transportation access, and toxic exposures).
     
(3)  It would require jurisdictions to tie federal funding — such as Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds — to addressing the fair housing challenges that are identified.

Taken as a whole, the proposed rule would mean that cities, counties, and states must be proactive to ensure all people can live in neighborhoods where they have access to the opportunities and resources we all need to succeed.

This rule is long overdue. It will help turn around the lasting negative impacts of historically discriminatory practices that contributed to the creation of poor neighborhoods of color, and it will reduce barriers that cut millions of Americans off from economic opportunity. This rule can be a powerful tool to advance equitable economic growth for the nation, and here are five reasons how:

(1)  Reducing growth-limiting racial and economic exclusion: Research shows that families living in disinvested and low-income communities have limited economic mobility and reduced future earnings. This effect creates generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunity: For example, two-thirds of Black children raised in the poorest quarter of U.S. neighborhoods a generation ago are now raising their children in similarly poor neighborhoods. This proposed rule has been proven to help direct more investment to neighborhoods that need them and help low-income families move to neighborhoods with more resources. Both the Puget Sound and the Twin Cities regions built off of their fair housing assessments – part of a pilot for the proposed AFFH rule – to focus new infrastructure investment in Native American, African American, African immigrant, Latino and Southeast Asian communities in need of investment. When St. Louis conducted a fair housing assessment, the city found that Housing Choice Vouchers were being used primarily in low-income neighborhoods where there were few jobs and community amenities. This assessment helped the city revamp its program to help residents find diverse housing choices that better met their needs.
     
(2)   Connecting people to job opportunities: By encouraging more job investments in high-unemployment communities and promoting transit investments that connect these communities to jobs elsewhere, this rule would help people previously isolated from employment opportunities better engage in the regional workforce and contribute to local economies. For example, Puget Sound used its fair housing assessment to strategically plan for a new food distribution hub and job incubators within historically disinvested neighborhoods where job growth was needed. And a New Orleans assessment that found transit was not serving late-shift schedules for hospitality and healthcare workers led to realignment of services to better meet low-wage, transit-dependent workers’ needs.
     
(3)  Creating jobs: Places that support the development of quality affordable housing and new infrastructure in disinvested neighborhoods also create new jobs both in the short- and the long-term for communities. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that building 100 affordable homes can lead to the creation of more than 120 jobs during the construction phase and roughly 30 jobs in a wide array of service industries once homes are occupied. When coupled with job training, inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and provisions for good wages and benefits, these jobs can help put low-income and unemployed residents on a pathway to good careers and financial stability.
     
(4)  Attracting new employers: Lack of quality affordable housing that connects to transit makes it more difficult for employers to recruit and retain employees, putting the local economy at a competitive disadvantage. In a national survey of more than 300 companies, 55 percent of large companies reported an insufficient level of affordable housing in their area, and two-thirds of these respondents cited this shortage as negatively affecting their ability to hold onto qualified employees. Other survey data suggests that affordable housing availability plays an important role in where new businesses decide to build or expand their operations. In Boston and Chicago, fair housing assessments helped these cities support new affordable homes around growing job centers in order to attract more employers to the area.
     
(5)  Providing low-income families with more disposable income to invest and save: The disproportionate housing burden on low-income communities and communities of color makes it hard for them to save for emergencies, make long-term investments, or spend money within the local economy on necessary goods and services. Affordable rent and mortgage payments, and access to affordable transportation, can substantially decrease household costs, in some cases by as much as five hundred dollars a month. When families can save on housing and transportation costs, it bolsters their resiliency and financial stability and allows greater spending on health care and education. These investments contribute to greater stability not only for these households, but for the broader economy: a recent study found that every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers actually adds about $1.21 to the national economy.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is powerful only if we understand it and put it to use. Learn more about the rule in our upcoming webinar.

How the Proposed Fair Housing Rule Will Boost the Economy

Strong and effective fair housing laws are essential for building prosperity — for people struggling to get by, for local and regional economies that benefit from thriving communities, and for the nation as a whole. That’s why a proposed rule by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is so important. As inequality soars and neighborhoods of concentratedpoverty are on the rise in most American cities, the rule would push municipalities to deliver on the promise of fair housing. By helping to connect low-income families to neighborhoods of greater opportunity, the rule has the potential to spur economic growth not only within these households, but within cities and regions.

The rule, due out this summer, is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). It would sharpen the tools that equity advocates and public sector leaders can use to increase investment in high-poverty neighborhoods, fight racial discrimination in the housing market, and add more affordable housing choices in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools, and other essentials. It would do this in three important ways:

(1)  It would make municipalities more accountable to community member needs by requiring resident engagement on fair housing and community development issues.
     
(2)  It would require a data-driven analysis (an "assessment of fair housing") of community conditions and impediments to fair housing, including factors that contribute to areas of racially concentrated poverty and high unemployment (e.g., school performance, transportation access, and toxic exposures).
     
(3)  It would require jurisdictions to tie federal funding — such as Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds — to addressing the fair housing challenges that are identified.

Taken as a whole, the proposed rule would mean that cities, counties, and states must be proactive to ensure all people can live in neighborhoods where they have access to the opportunities and resources we all need to succeed.

This rule is long overdue. It will help turn around the lasting negative impacts of historically discriminatory practices that contributed to the creation of poor neighborhoods of color, and it will reduce barriers that cut millions of Americans off from economic opportunity. This rule can be a powerful tool to advance equitable economic growth for the nation, and here are five reasons how:

(1)  Reducing growth-limiting racial and economic exclusion: Research shows that families living in disinvested and low-income communities have limited economic mobility and reduced future earnings. This effect creates generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunity: For example, two-thirds of Black children raised in the poorest quarter of U.S. neighborhoods a generation ago are now raising their children in similarly poor neighborhoods. This proposed rule has been proven to help direct more investment to neighborhoods that need them and help low-income families move to neighborhoods with more resources. Both the Puget Sound and the Twin Cities regions built off of their fair housing assessments – part of a pilot for the proposed AFFH rule – to focus new infrastructure investment in Native American, African American, African immigrant, Latino and Southeast Asian communities in need of investment. When St. Louis conducted a fair housing assessment, the city foundthat Housing Choice Vouchers were being used primarily in low-income neighborhoods where there were few jobs and community amenities. This assessment helped the city revamp its program to help residents find diverse housing choices that better met their needs.
     
(2)   Connecting people to job opportunities: By encouraging more job investments in high-unemployment communities and promoting transit investments that connect these communities to jobs elsewhere, this rule would help people previously isolated from employment opportunities better engage in the regional workforce and contribute to local economies. For example, Puget Sound used its fair housing assessment to strategically plan for a new food distribution hub and job incubators within historically disinvested neighborhoods where job growth was needed. And a New Orleans assessment that found transit was not serving late-shift schedules for hospitality and healthcare workers led to realignment of services to better meet low-wage, transit-dependent workers’ needs.
     
(3)  Creating jobs: Places that support the development of quality affordable housing and new infrastructure in disinvested neighborhoods also create new jobs both in the short- and the long-term for communities. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that building 100 affordable homes can lead to the creation of more than 120 jobs during the construction phase and roughly 30 jobs in a wide array of service industries once homes are occupied. When coupled with job training, inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and provisions for good wages and benefits, these jobs can help put low-income and unemployed residents on a pathway to good careers and financial stability.
     
(4)  Attracting new employers: Lack of quality affordable housing that connects to transit makes it more difficult for employers to recruit and retain employees, putting the local economy at a competitive disadvantage. In a national survey of more than 300 companies, 55 percent of large companies reported an insufficient level of affordable housing in their area, and two-thirds of these respondents cited this shortage as negatively affecting their ability to hold onto qualified employees. Other survey data suggests that affordable housing availability plays an important role in where new businesses decide to build or expand their operations. In Boston and Chicago, fair housing assessments helped these cities support new affordable homes around growing job centers in order to attract more employers to the area.
     
(5)  Providing low-income families with more disposable income to invest and save: The disproportionate housing burdenon low-income communities and communities of color makes it hard for them to save for emergencies, make long-term investments, or spend money within the local economy on necessary goods and services. Affordable rent and mortgage payments, and access to affordable transportation, can substantially decrease household costs, in some cases by as much as five hundred dollars a month. When families can save on housing and transportation costs, it bolsters their resiliency and financial stability and allows greater spending on health care and education. These investments contribute to greater stability not only for these households, but for the broader economy: a recent study found that every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers actually adds about $1.21 to the national economy.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is powerful only if we understand it and put it to use. Learn more about the rule in our upcoming webinar.

B Corporations Deliver on Equity, Sustainability

Benefit corporations provide a way for businesses to make profit without having to slash wages or resort to environmentally destructive practices. Ben & Jerry's, for instance, is one of the world's most popular ice cream brands with an annual sales revenue of $132 million. Its lowest-paid worker makes $16.13 an hour, which is 46 percent above the living wage in home state Vermont, and the company offsets more than 50 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. More than 40 percent of the board and management are from underrepresented populations, such as women, people of color, lower-income individuals, and people with disabilities.

In a time when U.S. corporate profits are soaring but wages remain stagnant, Ben & Jerry's and hundreds of other companies, including Cooperative Home Care Associates profiled below, are choosing an alternative business model – benefit corporations – driven not just by profits but also by fair working conditions, diverse leadership, and environmentally sustainable practice.

One of the fundamental challenges to growing more "triple bottom line" businesses is the legal requirement to maximize profits that applies to corporations. Anything that takes away from profits, such as higher wages or more sustainable environmental practices, leaves the corporation vulnerable to being sued by its shareholders. This limitation hinders companies from advancing any values beyond profit making.

In response to this limitation, a movement was started to pass legislation allowing for a new type of corporate entity called the benefit corporation. The benefit corporation provides legal protection for businesses that choose to treat their workers well, protect the environment, and invest in their communities, even if it means their annual profits are not as high. As of 2013, 19 states plus the District of Columbia passed benefit corporation legislation, including Delaware, which is home to 50 percent of all publicly traded companies and 64 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

In 2012, Ben & Jerry's took a step beyond being a benefit corporation and became a Certified B Corporation, as conferred by a nonprofit organization called B Lab. There are currently more than 1,000 registered B Corps. A Certified B Corp voluntarily meets higher standards of governance, workforce treatment, environmental impact, and community involvement. Companies must score at least 80 points on a scale of 200 to be eligible for certification.

Certified B Corps are part of a community of socially responsible companies and span a large spectrum of goods and services. In 2012, Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx, New York, became the first home care company to become a Certified B Corp. Their overall B Score, at 154, is nearly twice the median score.

One of the reasons CHCA scores so high in the B Impact Assessment is because it is a worker-owned cooperative with the vast majority of the workers and worker-owners being from the Bronx. In an industry where good-paying jobs are hard to come by, CHCA deliberately chose a different business model, one that prioritizes workers over profits, and has flourished for nearly 30 years. The company has grown from 12 people to now over 2,000 employees, 70 percent of whom are worker-owners.

"When we started, a lot of for-profit home-care companies were established and were seen as a way of making a lot of money in a short time," said Michael Elsas, president of CHCA. "You didn't have to pay workers that much, you didn't have to train them that well, and you could move in and make a killing. And, in that environment we wanted to establish something a little different, more socially responsible."

Treating the workers well was not just a social mission, but it made good business sense. Elsas said, "Many of the people we were seeing were women, particularly women of color. The thought was if we train people longer and really spend time with them, if we prepare them for an entry-level position and get them ready to work and remove those barriers to work, and, if we provided a lot of support for those workers both before and after they were trained by us, we could create quality, full-time jobs. And then as a result of that quality job, we would be providing quality care that we could, in fact, provide better services."

CHCA has been a co-op since the company started in 1985. Going from a co-op model to also certifying as a B Corp was an easy decision and made a lot of business sense, Elsas said. "Distinguishing ourselves as a B Corp would be helpful in marketing to be able to say we are the only B-Corp certified home care company. We thought that would be helpful for those entities that want to do business with a B Corp. Quite honestly, it was a natural for us. There was very little that we had to do to get certified because we were already a worker-owned company, we already had everything in place."

Elsas said that CHCA is successful not because it is a co-op but because of the best practices they employ. Currently, 90 cents of every dollar that comes into the company goes to the worker. While paying workers less would result in higher profits and better dividends, Elsas said higher dividends is not what has made the company successful for 30 years. Instead, what makes CHCA successful is "how we train, how we supervise people, how we respect people, how we let people participate in what we do."

Companies like CHCA and Ben & Jerry's show that businesses can make a profit and embrace socially responsible practices. Higher wages and better work environments help working families reach economic security. Consumers can support B Corps and environmentally and socially conscious businesses by buying their products and services. A full list of B Corps can be found here.

New York City Invests in Worker Co-ops — and Equitable Growth

Before Yadira Fragoso became a worker-owner at Si Se Puede, a housecleaning cooperative of immigrant women in New York, she earned $6.25 to $10 an hour in various jobs. She had no control over her hours or schedule and sometimes had to bring her children to work.
 
Now she earns $20 to $25 an hour. Along with the cooperative's 50 other worker-owners, she shares decision making for all business policies and operations. Most importantly, she says, she has greater economic security and job flexibility, so she can spend more time at home with her kids. Joining the co-op "changed my life," she recently told the New York City Council.
 
Stories like this and determined organizing by advocates for a fairer, more inclusive economy have persuaded city officials to invest $1.2 million this year in developing worker-owned businesses in low-income communities and communities of color. It's the largest investment in such businesses ever made by a city government in the United States (though only a tiny fraction of the city's $75 billion budget).
 
The initiative aims to support the creation of 234 jobs and bring training and financial resources to 20 existing co-ops and 28 start-ups. It promises to raise the profile of worker-owned cooperatives as a strategy for equitable economic growth.
 
How worker co-ops spur the growth of good jobs
 
Job growth in New York City since the Great Recession has been concentrated in low-wage industries. Black and Latino communities are unemployed or underemployed at double the rates of Whites. Economic barriers have left more than one in five New Yorkers in poverty and driven income inequality to a historic high. A recent report by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA) documents these trends and says they threaten the city's economic growth.
 
The report points to small businesses — the city has about 200,000 — as the largest job creator, and to worker-owned businesses as an effective model for closing income and wage gaps by moving people from joblessness or precarious employment to dignified jobs. Worker co-ops tend to provide higher wages, good benefits, training, and career pathways, particularly in typically low-wage industries like housecleaning and home care.
 
At the eight-year old Si Se Puede, for instance, worker-owners receive 100 percent of the pay for their work — there are no agency fees or middlemen — and receive training in the use of safe, eco-friendly cleaning products.
 
Most successful co-ops provide financial returns to worker-owners, creating avenues to accumulate wealth. And because they are democratically owned and managed, they empower workers, build dignity, and inspire engagement in civic society. "There's no greater medicine for apathy and feelings of living on the edges of society than to see your own work and your voice make a difference," says the FPWA report.
 
A beacon for the burgeoning worker co-op movement in the city and across the country is Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the South Bronx. Founded in 1985 with 12 workers, it employs more than 2,000 people, making it the nation's largest worker co-op and a significant driver of employment in the Bronx. Wages and benefits for CHCA home care aides have increased more than 40 percent in the past five years, and turnover is 15 percent, compared with more than 60 percent for the industry overall.
 
New York is also home to several dozen young worker co-ops, mostly in immigrant communities. Occupy Sandy — an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street that mobilized to aid cleanup in the Rockaways after Superstorm Sandy — has seized on co-op development as an important growth strategy for the area, which was struggling even before the storm. The group has partnered with The Working World, a nonprofit organization that provides investment capital and technical assistance to co-ops, to incubate worker co-ops in the area, particularly in the large Central American community.
 
A bakery and a construction co-op have launched, and three more co-ops — juice bar, landscaping, and screen printing — are in development, said Pablo Benson, a consultant for Worker-Owned Rockaway Cooperatives.
 
"A huge component of the long-term recovery effort is to help develop a more democratic form of economic redevelopment," he said. "It's remarkable what can be unleashed when people have the power to make decisions."
 

AB 2060 Workforce Bill Signed Into Law

California has one of the largest and most expensive prison systems in the nation and is currently under a federal court order to reduce its prison population. System and community leaders across the state have recognized the urgent need to lower the numbers of current prisoners and the rate of recidivism, in order to decrease state prison costs and increase public safety. 

Earlier this week, Governor Jerry Brown helped California take a major step toward achieving these goals by signing AB 2060 (Supervised Population Workforce Training Grant Program) into law. Authored by Assemblymember Victor Manuel Pérez and co-sponsored by PolicyLink, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, and the California Workforce Association, AB 2060 will establish a new competitive workforce training grant program for women and men re-entering our communities and families after being released from prison, to ensure that they have access to training and education, job readiness skills, and job placement assistance. The bill was also identified as a priority by the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.

Law enforcement officials and judges agree that opportunity-enhancing strategies are less expensive than incarceration and more effective at reducing recidivism and improving community safety and stability. Investing in workforce development opportunities for reentry populations is a critical step toward expanding access to well-paying jobs and careers, which in turn will improve offender outcomes and reduce recidivism rates, resulting in economic savings and improved public safety.

The program established by AB 2060 is designed to serve the distinct education and training needs of individuals who require basic education and training in order to obtain entry level jobs with opportunities for career advancement, and also individuals with some postsecondary education who can benefit from services that result in certifications and placement on a middle-skill career ladder.

Administered by the California Workforce Investment Board, the new grant program will build on the most promising workforce development strategies and incentivize counties to foster collaboration and coordination with Local Workforce Investment Boards (LWIBs), the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, community-based organizations that serve re-entry populations, labor, and industry. Regional coordination also advances realignment goals, which shift some of the responsibility for housing prisoners from the state to the local level.

An allocation of $1 million from the Governor’s Recidivism Reduction Fund was secured to launch this effort through the budget process earlier this year. AB 2060 will leverage the State’s investment by rewarding counties that commit matching funds. This translates into additional dollars for the program and will help to sustain the strategy over time, ensuring that more women and men can be served.

We must work at the regional and state levels to ensure that every Californian has a fair chance to contribute and thrive. By investing in workforce training and job placement for the women and men re-entering our families and communities, we can improve neighborhood safety and stability and secure a more prosperous future. 

Building a Worker-Owned Innovation Economy

Tucked between the steep mountains and rugged coast of northern Spain, a vast network of worker-owned businesses is producing everything from electric cars to advanced robotics. It's also inspiring equitable growth strategies in low-income neighborhoods in the United States, from Cleveland, Ohio, to Richmond, California.

Mondragon Corporation is a network of over 100 worker-owned cooperatives and businesses with nearly $20 billion in revenue and 74,000 employees. Its home province, where the corporation employs one in 14 workers, is an economic driver for the nation, and has the highest per capita income in the country. Mondragon is an impressive business model to build an equitable innovation economy.

Economic resilience in action

Growth and innovation have been central to Mondragon’s mission and success, but for reasons different from most companies. “Our purpose is to create wealth and jobs in society. Work with dignity, this is the goal,” said Mikel Lezamiz, director of cooperative dissemination at Mondragon.

Executive pay is capped at eight times that of the lowest-paid worker in the company. “And we still attract top talent,” said Lezamiz. Worker-owners are involved in major decisions in their companies, and annual profits are distributed among them. Wages before profit sharing for entry-level workers are roughly equal to industry averages, according to Mondragon.

The bulk of Mondragon’s companies are in advanced industrial manufacturing and services. The corporation also runs a major local bank, a national grocery store chain, several vocational schools and universities, and over a dozen research and development centers. While headquartered in a small town in the Basque region of Spain, the corporation generates over half of its jobs outside of the region, including a growing number of manufacturing subsidiaries around the globe (at present, 122 plants employing 12,000 workers, who are not worker-owners).

Solidarity across the businesses has allowed most workers, if not the companies themselves, to weather the economic crisis that has crippled much of Spain. Unemployment in the area is less than half that for the rest of Spain. And when staffing at one company needs to be reduced, the cooperatives help each other place workers in job openings elsewhere. During the recent recession, over 1,000 workers in struggling cooperatives were moved to jobs in more stable ones, according to Lezamiz.

However, businesses are not immune to exposure to risk. Last year, Mondragon’s first and oldest cooperative, a household appliance manufacturer that was hard hit by the housing foreclosure crisis, filed for bankruptcy, threatening the jobs and investments of 1,800 worker-owners. The cooperative group is trying to relocate affected workers to other cooperatives.

Humanity at work

Mondragon’s slogan — “humanity at work” — is a marriage of its social justice roots and business smarts. It represents a business model that places workers as the strongest asset of a company, not a cost to be minimized. A growing number of American business leaders are recognizing the competitive advantage this approach can bring to companies, particularly ones competing in a global marketplace.

In practice, at Mondragon, this means a commitment to worker-owner participation at the highest levels of governance. Members meet annually to set the overall direction and mission of the business group, and they elect representatives to the governing council that oversees management of the businesses. All members are given full access to internal financial documents of their companies, and time during work to read through them and discuss with co-workers.

It also means a strong investment in education. Mondragon runs three community colleges and a university that offer degrees in engineering, cooperative business, humanities, and more. Students from low-income families get preference for scholarships and access to jobs to make it more affordable for them to attend, according to Lezamiz.

Spreading the model

Fifty years ago, Mondragon began with a technical school and one small factory. Soon after, they started a local bank to keep workers’ wealth in the community and reinvest it in new cooperative ventures. Today, the bank has over $32 billion in assets.

This is perhaps the greatest lesson from Mondragon. What began as a tiny venture 50 years ago is today a global powerhouse. And this was accomplished by building community wealth and maintaining a commitment to worker dignity and empowerment. In recent years, Mondragon staff have worked to spread their business model to new places, including in the formation of the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio, an initiative in Richmond, California to start several worker co-ops, and a new partnership with the United Steelworkers to develop a union-cooperative model. If these projects can replicate Mondragon’s success, they may become important drivers of an equitable economy in the United States.

In June 2014, Angela Glover Blackwell, Anita Hairston, and Chris Schildt from PolicyLink traveled to Bilbao, Spain, to participate in a German Marshall Fund summit on urban transformation, and visited Mondragon Corporation headquarters in Gipuzkoa Province, Spain. To learn more about the German Marshall Fund summit, read this blog post.

The Benefits of Paid Sick Days: What’s Good for Workers is Good for Businesses

In 2011, Connecticut became the first state to require workers to be able to earn paid sick leave. For many part-time workers, especially in industries like retail and hospitality, it was their first opportunity ever to earn paid sick leave. Though opponents to the law claimed that it would negatively impact business in the state, an evaluation of the law to date by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, however, found the opposite to be true. Not only was the impact on business minimal, employment actually rose in several sectors, including hospitality and health services, again proving that what is good for workers is good for businesses.

The need for basic work supports, like paid sick leave, was a cornerstone of the White House Summit on Working Families last week. The Summit brought together advocates, business leaders, elected officials and workers to focus on ways to help support working families. As part of the Summit, several business leaders testified to how providing work supports not only helped increase productivity and returns, their businesses also thrived and expanded. Ranging from large, multi-national corporations to small, local restaurants, providing paid time off and flexible work schedules improved staff morale and productivity and also helped business growth.

Moreover, these basic work supports are being offered by small businesses and industries that are in highly-competitive and predominantly low-wage industries. In Seattle, Plum Bistro Restaurant led the successful effort to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. A member of the Main Street Alliance, a network of small business owners, Plum Bistro’s owner stated that while offering paid sick days costs only pennies per plate, the costs are more than made up for by improved retention, higher employee morale and increase customer satisfaction.  Costco uses a model counter to most retailers and pays living wages and provides paid benefits to all its employees. Not only do its profits steadily grow, Costco has a remarkably low turnover employee turnover rate--only 5 percent for employees who have been there over a year leave.

Currently, 41 million people do not have access to paid sick leave. Women and people of color are overrepresented in industries that do not offer paid sick leave. African American and Latino workers, in general, are far more likely to not have access to paid sick days than white workers. While businesses would see little to no impact on their bottom line, offering paid sick leave is the number one policy women living in poverty or right on the edge say would give them a leg up, even more than a wage increase or other benefits.

Giving workers the ability to earn paid sick leave is more than the right thing to do, it’s a smart business move that underscores how what’s good for workers is good for the economy.
 

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