The National Employment Law Project (NELP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to tracking the current economic recovery in terms of unemployment, wages, occupational, and industry growth patterns, released a new report in August of 2012, Low-Wage Recovery and Growing Inequality. The report finds that employment losses from 2008 to 2010 were concentrated in mid-wage occupations. However, the new jobs from 2010 to 2012 have been concentrated to lower wage occupations, which grew almost three times as fast as mid-wage and higher wage occupations. The report shows that the United States not only has a job deficit, but a “good jobs” deficit.
Released in July 2012 by the Applied Research Center, this report highlights the struggle for good food and good jobs as a key facet of the movement for racial and economic justice. More than 110 million people in the U.S. suffer from “dangerously” unhealthy diets – nearly two-thirds of who are African American and Latino. Additionally, 40 million Americans lack food security as a result of poverty, with African American and Latinos representing more than half. To improve access to productive jobs and healthy food, the author advocates that community-labor alliances must support two main sectors: small and medium sized food manufactures that produce ethnic cuisines without violating labor laws and state and local governments that purchase locally produced food.
Commissioned by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this paper by Gar Alperovitz establishes a framework on strategies to simultaneously anchor jobs in local communities and promote community-based economic development.
In the fall of 2006, The Democracy Collaborative began organizing a series of Community Wealth Building Roundtables in cities across the country. One of the first of these conferences was held in Cleveland, Ohio. The Roundtable – “Building Community Wealth: New Asset-Based Approaches to Solving Social and Economic Problems in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio” – brought together local economic development practitioners and advocates, policy makers from the city and county, labor, business leaders, and anchor institutions. The day-long dialogue focused on the local situation, created linkages across sectors and organizations, and helped identify opportunities with in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio to expand the field and to build greater support for a comprehensive strategy of community wealth building innovations and policies.
On October 21, 2009, the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, the first of a growing network of worker-owned cooperatives in Cleveland's Greater University Circle neighborhoods, officially opened its doors.
For a June 2010 update, listen to this Cleveland Foundation podcast. For written updates on Evergreen, see this article in GreenBiz.com and this article from a Duke business school attendee at the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies conference.
The newest of the Evergreen Cooperative, broke ground on October 17th. Situated on ten acres, the greenhouse will annually produce more than 3 million heads of lettuce, 300,000 pound of fresh herbs, and will employ 35 worker-owners.
