Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities Still Ahead for Labor during the Biden-Harris Administration
by Pronita Gupta
Excerpt:
Back in the year 2000, I worked for a grassroots organizing group focused on economic and racial justice in Los Angeles. Living in the wake of decades of deindustrialization, union-busting, and institutionalized pg. 6 Jerry Wurf Memorial Lecture racism, our largely Black and Latino members had decided to prioritize a campaign to win the creation of high-quality jobs and ensure community access to the training and supports needed for their neighbors and families to really succeed in those jobs. They also wanted to work in a sector that was critical for their communities: health care.
Alongside those community members, I led the policy work that identified the federal Workforce Investment Act dollars then flowing into our city and county. Working closely with the health care and public employee unions and the community college system, we developed a demand for a new health care careers program that would create career pathways and grow good union jobs. We ran a campaign on the L.A. Workforce Investment Board and the L.A. City Council. And we won.
That program still exists.
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