Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Farmworker Unions on the Rise in New York, Joined by the United Farm Workers

    Capitalizing on broad political-organizing pushes across the U.S., the United Farm Workers (UFW) union signed its first contract in New York, offering significant protections to about 150 orchard workers.

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  • Ethiopia's Utopian Experiment in Gender Equality

    The Awra Amba community is founded on broad values such as gender equality of labor, women’s rights, children’s rights, and caring for the elderly and vulnerable, and residents work together on 15 democratically elected committees to make key decisions. Research shows that the community has achieved higher life expectancy, literacy rates, and measures of gender equality than the country’s national averages.

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  • How farmworkers in Washington state got lawmakers' attention

    Each year, farmworkers in Washington state gather for a people’s tribunal where they share their stories about the injustices they face on the job and advocate for policies to improve working conditions. In addition to supporters, the tribunal is attended by legislative staffers and sometimes elected representatives, and the tribunal’s findings have helped usher in new protections for workers, including guaranteed overtime pay and mandated cooling breaks in extreme heat.

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  • Ideas We Should Steal: More Worker-Owned Businesses

    Democracy Brewing is a worker cooperative, which means worker-owners split the profits and have an equal say in business decisions that affect working conditions. Studies show that this type of business structure results in higher wages and household wealth for workers of color, and these workers also tend to stay in their positions longer.

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  • When Neighbors Choose How to Spend Philanthropic Dollars

    The Kensington Community Resilience Fund supports local initiatives through participatory grant-making, a process where advisory committees made up of community members – who are deeply familiar with their community’s needs – help decide which organizations should receive a share of the funding. Since 2020, KCR has awarded $760,000 in grants to neighborhood programs.

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  • Portland Youth Exercise Power through Participatory Budgeting

    Through Youth Voice Youth Vote, nearly 800 young people in Portland took part in a participatory budgeting process to decide how to spend $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding. The winning projects, including a paid internship program, expanded access to menstrual products, and a job resource fair, are now in the process of being implemented.

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  • In some Chicago wards, residents vote on how tax money is spent. Should all Chicagoans get a seat at the budget table?

    In some wards of Chicago, residents are able to directly weigh in on city council spending and projects through an annual participatory budgeting process. Citizen input has helped bring a range of capital improvements to fruition, from public exercise stations in local parks to efforts to replace lead-contaminated water fountains in schools.

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  • Queens pols unveil winning participatory budgeting projects

    Through participatory budgeting, New York residents can propose and vote for community improvement projects through their local city council. In one Queens City Council district, more than 2,300 people aged 11 and up voted to allocate funding to five projects, including new trees and sidewalk guards, new X-ray equipment for the area hospital, and a hydroponic science lab for a local school.

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  • How Mass Bird Death In Philadelphia Catalyzed A Local Lights-out Program

    A light pollution mitigation pledge in Philadephia called Lights Out Philly asks building managers to agree to turn off their lights late at night during bird migration periods to decrease bird collisions with windows.

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  • Independent, locally focused unions are expanding workers' rights

    As unionization efforts have ramped up in corporate workplaces, employees in less traditional industries have also begun to form independent unions to advocate for their rights. For example, unionization efforts at video game company ZeniMax helped workers secure a pay adjustment, while an independent union formed at the Art Institute of Chicago secured the right for employees to have union representation in disciplinary meetings.

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