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Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Recognizes Staff Union

by Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Both staff and management assert that the formation of the union aligns with Ella Baker’s legacy and the organization's longstanding support for unionization, collective bargaining, and worker voice on the job.
ella-baker-center-human-rights.jpg
[ Photo via Black Art Depot / Kani Saburi Ayubu ]


Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Recognizes Staff Union

(Oakland) --- The staff at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC), have formed the Ella Baker Workers Association (EBWA), a staff union, and have selected the Communications Workers of America (CWA, Local 9415) to serve as the EBWA’s collective bargaining representative. Following in the footsteps of Ella Baker, a brilliant, black hero of the civil rights movement, the Ella Baker Center, based in Oakland, builds the power of black, brown, and poor people to break the cycles of incarceration and poverty and make communities safe, healthy, and strong.

EBC’s management team has voluntarily recognized the formation of a union to represent its staff. “Our namesake Ella Baker believed in the power of everyday people to make change. In that spirit, we support the formation of a union at the Ella Baker Center, and are eager to continue to work together as a team to advance our mission of winning racial and economic justice,” said Zachary Norris, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

In a statement from the EBWA organizing committee:

“We are proud to have successfully formed a union that represents the interests of communities most impacted by incarceration in our workplace and will give workers a voice and the power to strengthen the organization through our collective agency. We hope having a staff union will lead to increased democracy, dignity, staff retention and transparency within the organization and allow us to fully live out our values of centering the experiences and leadership of directly impacted people as we work towards transformational change.”

Both staff and management assert that the formation of the union aligns with Ella Baker’s legacy and the organization's longstanding support for unionization, collective bargaining, and worker voice on the job. The formation of the union at the Ella Baker Center emerges at a time when many of our peer non-profit organizations in the movement are forming their own staff unions.

“EBC has joined a growing number of nonprofits that recognize the many ways in which unionization empowers working people and helps sustain and grow organizations,” said Decovan “Coby” Rhem, the Presidents of CWA Local 9415. “We welcome EBWA to CWA Local 9415 and look forward to collaborating with them as they work towards a first contract.”
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by ntuit
It is sad that an organization like this even needs a union. Why isn't it a worker co-operative? Why does it need a managerial hierarchy to even negotiate with a labor force. They should all be one but I guess they aren't weird to me. Is there something we don't know about Ella Baker Center?
by surely you know who runs the joint
@ntuit: Is there something we don't know about Ella Baker Center?

Surely you know it's run by Van Jones, who likes to front as a radical, but he's a liberal Democrat with political ambitions. He's a-okay with capitalism, and doesn't mind rubbing elbows with neo-cons.

My question about the staff union: what took them so long?!
by ntuit
I thought Van Jones was no longer involved with the Ella Baker Center in a major way. So it is hierarchical and non-egalitarian although it is supposed to be bringing progressive agendas to the community. When will people look in the mirror and admit that when it gets right down to it...they ain't all that they claim to be. Of course, with people like Van, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
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