The Skadden Fellowship Foundation was established in recognition of the dire need for greater funding for graduating law students who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to the poor (including the working poor), the elderly, the homeless and the disabled, as well as those deprived of their civil or human rights. The aim of the foundation is to give Fellows the freedom to pursue public interest work; thus, the Fellows create their own projects at public interest organizations with at least two lawyers on staff before they apply.
The mission of Equal Justice Works is to create a just society by mobilizing the next generation of lawyers committed to equal justice. Equal Justice Works was founded in 1986 by law students dedicated to working for equal justice on behalf of underserved communities and causes. Today, Equal Justice Works is the national leader in creating summer and postgraduate public interest opportunities for law students and lawyers as well as in urging more public interest programming at law schools.
Founded in 1992, The Impact Fund enhances the ability of lawyers to bring public interest impact litigation in the areas of civil rights, poverty and environmental justice. The Impact Fund’s Grant Making Program grants money to public interest lawyers to advance costs in systemic impact litigation. Its Equal Justice Litigation Program provides counseling, advice and assistance on procedural and substantive issues that arise in complex litigation. The Fund’s legal team also acts as co-counsel on selected cases, and organizes amicus efforts, as well as providing high-quality training programs on aspects of class action and impact litigation.
The Peggy Browning Fund is a nonprofit corporation established to provide law students with diverse, challenging work and educational experiences in the area of workers' rights. Such unique and positive opportunities will both increase students' understanding of workers' needs as well as promote their entry into the practice of public interest labor law.
Founded in 1993, Equal Justice America has become a national leader in providing opportunities for law students to work with organizations that deliver civil legal services to those most in need. Their efforts expose a new generation of future lawyers to the urgency for pro bono assistance to our most vulnerable
citizens. Equal Justice America has sponsored fellowships for close to 1,650 law students to work with more than 200 legal services organizations across the country. Interning under the supervision of experienced attorneys, fellowship recipients have provided approximately 500,000 hours of crucial assistance to low-income clients. Since September 2002, EJA has also funded two-year post-graduate Fellowships, launching the public interest careers of outstanding young attorneys.
The mission of the Fair Labor Association (FLA) is to combine the efforts of industry, civil society organizations, and colleges and universities to protect workers´ rights and improve working conditions worldwide by promoting adherence to international labor standards. The FLA conducts independent monitoring and verification to ensure that the FLA´s Workplace Standards are upheld. Through public reporting, the FLA provides consumers and shareholders with credible information to make responsible buying decisions. FLA works to strengthen the capacity of local communities to advocate that governments meet their responsibilities to workers, and help workers themselves have a greater voice in determining and negotiating their needs.
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The National Lawyers Guild is dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system. Through its members--lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers and legal workers united in chapters and committees--the Guild works locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and social force in the service of the people.
The IPR is a public-interest law firm and clinical education program founded by Georgetown University Law Center in 1971. Attorneys at IPR act as counsel for groups and individuals who are unable to obtain effective legal representation on matters that have a significant impact on issues of broad public importance. IPR works in the areas of communications law, environmental law, civil rights as well as general
public interest matters.
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW)
The 1.3 million members of North America’s Neighborhood Union are standing together to improve the lives and livelihoods of workers, families, and communities. UFCW members support our lives in supermarkets, packinghouses, food processing plants, poultry processing plants, retail stores, manufacturing, and other stores, factories and service establishments. Some of the most important issues UFCW is focused on include health care, immigration, the Employee Free Choice Act, the minimum wage, and social security.
American Rights at Work is a national organization that informs the American public about the struggle to win workplace democracy for the millions of workers we all depend on every day. The organization uses coalition building, research, public relations, policy analysis, and advocacy to achieve their vision of a nation where the freedom of workers to organize unions and bargain collectively with employers is guaranteed and promoted.
Good Jobs First is a national policy resource center for grassroots groups and public officials, promoting corporate and government accountability in economic development and smart growth for working families. They provide timely, accurate information on best practices in state and local job subsidies, and on the many ties between smart growth and good jobs. Good Jobs First works with a very broad spectrum of organizations, providing research, training, communications and consulting assistance.
The Center for WorkLife Law is a research and advocacy center that seeks to eliminate employment discrimination against caregivers such as parents and adult children of aging parents. WorkLife Law is based at UC Hastings College of the Law and was founded as the Program on Gender, Work & Family in 1998. The Center changed its name to WorkLife Law in October 2003 to better reflect its increasing emphasis on identifying discriminatory employment practices against caregivers and using the legal system to prevent discrimination.
The Service Employees International Union—1.8 million working people and 50,000 retirees—is united to improve services and communities throughout North America. SEIU is winning better wages, health care, and more secure jobs at home, while uniting with counterparts around the world to ensure that workers, not just corporations and CEOs, benefit from today’s global economy. SEIU is North America’s largest health care union, largest property services union, and second largest public services union. Members include nurses, doctors, lab technicians, home care workers, janitors, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers.
Seven unions and six million workers united in Change to Win in 2005 to build a new movement of working people equipped to meet the challenges of the global economy and restore the American Dream in the 21st century: a paycheck that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement and dignity on the job. By devoting maximum resources, joining with allies to campaign, holding elected officials accountable, fighting for full legal rights for immigrant workers, and uniting with unions and allies in other countries, they hope to be able to accomplish this dream.
The Labor Project for Working Families has been partnering with unions, union members, community based organizations and other activists to promote better work and family policies and programs, including paid family leave, child care, elder care and flexible work schedules. Their training sessions and workshops educate unions about work/family initiatives, while advocating public policies for working families. Also, by supporting unions with contract negotiators, they promote innovation and partnership between unions and communities.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT Data Book is a national and state-by-state profile of the well-being of America’s children that seeks to enrich discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all kids. The Data Book ranks states on 10 key measures and provides data on the economic, health, education, and social conditions of America’s children and families.
The living wage website of The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN provides a brief history of the national living wage movement, background materials such as ordinance summaries and comparisons, drafting tips, research summaries, talking points, and links to other living wage-related sites.
The AFL-CIO Organizing Institute is a highly selective program designed to recruit and train a new generation of talented and committed union organizers. OI already has trained thousands of union members and others committed to building power for working families across the nation through classroom training, field training and job placement. New organizers assist workers who are forming unions in all sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, retail and agriculture.
The Brennan Center's Economic Justice Project promotes the creation of good jobs and policies to ensure that everyone in our society--especially immigrants, women, and people of color--has access to them. They work with coalitions of community groups, progressive unions, and legislative leaders trying to address the problem of growing inequality at the federal, state, and local levels. The Brennan Center supports these coalitions with a unique blend of technical assistance, including policy development, economic research, public education, and legal analysis and defense.
Founded in 1987, JwJ's mission is to improve working people's standard of living, fight for job security, and protect workers' right to organize. JwJ's core belief is that in order to be successful, workers' rights struggles have to be part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. To that end, JwJ has created a network of local, long-term, multi-issue coalitions that connect labor, faith-based, community, and student organizations to to form a broad community of allies encouraging greater victories concerning workplace and community social justice.
United Students Against Sweatshops is an international student movement of campuses and individual students fighting for sweatshop free labor conditions and workers’ rights. USAS' three major areas of campaign work are the Sweat-Free Campus Campaign; Ethical Contracting campaigns which includes the fight against Killer Coke and Nestle; and Campus-Community Solidarity campaigns, which include Living Wage and the Right to Organize.
The Labor Studies Center is a comprehensive labor education center committed to strengthening the capacity of organized labor to represent the needs and interests of workers, while at the same time strengthening the University's research and teaching on labor and workplace issues. It has provided direct technical support to living wage campaigns in Michigan, provided media interviews and expert testimony, and assisted living wage campaigns and organizations across the country.
Universal Living Wage promotes a national, universal living wage formula that is based on each local economy throughout the entire United States. The formula is designed in such a manner that someone in Austin, Boston, or L.A. who is willing and able to work a 40 hour week should at least be able to afford the cheapest form of housing.
The Economic Policy Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy. EPI was established in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low-and middle-income workers. EPI conducts original research on economic issues, makes policy recommendations based on its findings, and disseminates its work to the appropriate audiences. EPI's values include: helping working people; truth and accuracy; dignified, remunerative work; a strong, effective labor movement; and government for the people.
Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of Association (report by Human Rights Watch)
This report from Human Rights Watch details how Wal-Mart stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus even among the many American companies who use weak US laws to stop workers from organizing. Many of its anti-union tactics are lawful in the United States, though they combine to undermine workers’ rights. Others run afoul of soft US laws.
WakeUpWalMart.com is leading the national campaign to change Wal-Mart into a more responsible employer and company. Almost 400,000 Americans have joined the campaign and have helped make WakeUpWalMart.com one of the fastest growing grassroots movements in the nation.
Wal-Mart Workers of America is a national association, not a union, dedicated to improving the lives and defending the rights of current and former Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club workers. As the first national association of Wal-Mart workers, it will build a new empowering movement that will change Wal-Mart into a responsible employer.
Wal-Mart Watch is a nationwide public education campaign aimed at revealing the harmful impact of Wal-Mart on American families and demand reform of their business practices. They bridge the gap between ordinary citizens and community organizations concerned about Wal-Mart's unchecked growth and negative impact on our society while challenging Wal-Mart to embrace its moral responsibility as the nation's biggest and most important corporation.
CHEJ’s overarching goal has consistently been to prevent harm—particularly among vulnerable populations such as children. They believe that through the use of safer processes, materials or products, everyone, regardless of income, race, religion, or occupation, may live, work, learn, play and pray in a healthy community. To that end, they work as a convener, bringing together organizations to build strategic partnerships that lead to a more powerful and diverse collaborative effort for advocating healthy communities everywhere.
Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE)
The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment is a national environmental justice legal organization with offices in San Francisco and Delano, California. They provide legal and technical assistance to grassroots groups in low-income communities and communities of color fighting environmental hazards. Their three ambitions: that individuals taking part in a particular campaign leave the campaign with more personal capacity than they had coming into it, that the community involved has more power vis-a-vis decision makers at the end of the campaign than at the beginning, and to concretely address the environmental hazard at hand.
Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University
The EJRC serves as a research, policy, and information clearinghouse on issues related to environmental justice, race and the environment, civil rights, facility siting, land use planning, brownfields, transportation equity, suburban sprawl, and Smart Growth. The overall goal of the center is to assist, support, train, and educate people of color, students, professionals, and grassroots community leaders with the goal of facilitating their inclusion into the mainstream of environmental decision-making.
New York Environmental Law and Justice Project (NYELJP)
The NYELJP is a non-profit public interest organization that counsels and represents groups and individual concerns with the preservation and improvement of community environmental conditions. Through knowledge and effective and affordable legal venues, it is possible for citizens to protect themselves and their communities from dangerous and burdensome environmental. By utilizing "commando" law techniques, NYELJP is able to effectively promote the interests of the environmental community and work to provide environmental justice to all people regardless of race, gender or age.
New England
Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) www.ace-ej.org
