Working Family Solidarity�Solidaridad de Familias Trabajadoras

• Our mission is to unite low-income families of different backgrounds, to fight together for equitable development.
• Formed in late 2016, and officially incorporated in early 2017, we currently focus on eight neighborhoods on the west, southwest, and southsides of Chicago, in communities that are majority African American and Latinx.
• Our Founding Board and Executive Director were all African American or Latinx, and currently still are, as is our entire staff. We reflect the communities where we work.

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Our Goals

• We work primarily on the issues of labor rights, access to good jobs, while promoting basic housing stability for low-income workers, particularly African American and Latinx working families.
• Our approach is a racial equity focus, with an emphasis on racial unity to win economic justice for all working families.
• In order to effectively advance these main goals, we also engage on the deeply interwoven issues of immigration, civil rights, and criminal justice.
• Highlighting the issues of jobs AND housing, as belong together.
• Via organizing and advocacy for better policies at local & state level.

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Our organizing approach: #1��We conduct Racial Justice Teach-ins & Know Your Rights workshops to educate ourselves regarding relevant federal, state, county, & city laws. Topics include: Worker Rights (wage & hour, health & safety, discrimination), Housing (tenants’ rights, small homeowners’ rights), Immigration (at work, general), Criminal Justice (Sealing & Expungement, inmate rights, employment related), & other.

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Our organizing approach: #2

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We hold Racial Unity Dialogues to build trust and build a joint analysis of who benefits when we are divided, and how our unity can create power for all poor people, especially people of color. We start with a specific theme, then participants share their thoughts and feelings on racial divisiveness, racial tension, and how racism has been used to keep different races/ethnicities from seeing each other as natural allies in the struggle for racial equity and economic justice.

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Our organizing approach: #3

We carry out Justice Campaigns, to win concrete victories for low income workers and their families. We support tenants to unite and demand improved living conditions, in order to win improvements in their living situation. We will support workers to win unpaid wages at numerous workplaces, & to resolve many workplace accidents. We support workers at their workplaces to win unpaid back wages, safer working conditions, more respectful treatment, increased wages, and to win non-discrimination hiring practices against African Americans and Latinx.

Justice Campaign at PMD#7

Started at Three Brothers Industrial Laundry (19^th & Washtenaw), then expanded to cover all of Planned Manufacturing District #7

The campaign and community activists received media coverage in “HOY,” the Sun-Times, and in Chicago Public Radio WBEZ’s special three-part series on Manufacturing in Chicago (Oct, 2019)

First ever African American hired at the laundry in late 2019

Workers recovered tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid wages in a settlement of a major Federal Wage and Hour Lawsuit (FLSA)

In late 2019, we began to look at expansion to other PMD’s.

The PMD’s were started years ago to create decent jobs in neighborhoods that needed access to more good jobs.

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Building our capacity & increasing our impact

--First full year (2017): establishing ourselves as a viable organization.

--2018: Having a concrete impact, conducting our first campaigns.

--2019: Establishing connections with other groups & coalitions, and increasing our impact, especially via our Justice Campaign at PMD#7.

--2020: Urgent support efforts connected to the pandemic. Moving our meetings & gatherings to a virtual approach.

--2021: Continuing our monthly gatherings via Zoom. Keeping our members, leaders, & supporters together.

--2022: A crucial role in passing “Source of Income” state law.

--2023: Organizing/mobilizing residents of ABLA Homes housing complex.

--2024: Advancing “Local Hire/Targeted Hire”; opening our new office.

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Working Family Solidarity/Solidaridad de Familias Trabajadoras�2272 S. Blue Island Ave., ground floor, Chicago, IL 60608�www.workingfamilysolidarity.org; leonejose@workingfamilysolidarity.org