Ella Baker Center for Human Rights Recognizes Staff Union

[ 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.”