LELO leads the following projects designed to transform our values and political analysis into practice and tangibly improve the conditions faced by workers and their communities:
The Family Wage Jobs Organizing Project fights to open up living wage union jobs in the building and construction trades to young people of color, low-income women and recent immigrants. Just last month the project won a
significant organizing victory when the Seattle Housing Authority agreed to a community hiring plan that will prioritize low-income residents of public housing and surrounding communities for jobs on their Rainier Vista and High Point job sites. The Tyree Scott International Worker to Worker Project creates opportunities for ordinary workers from different countries to communicate with each other - in their own languages - and share information about the global economy and its effects on their lives. The project’s 2005 theme is “Educate Against Privatization.” From Bush’s Social Security Scheme to the selling off of public land through the Hope VI housing redevelopments, the privatization of public resources is taking a toll on working people. The one-year education campaign will seek to inspire local actions against privatization and link local workers with members of the more than 20 grassroots workers’ organizations around the world who participate in our Worker-to-Worker network. LELO’s Relicensing Project outreaches to and organizes low-income workers who have lost their driver’s licenses because they can’t afford to pay traffic tickets and helps them challenge public policy that unfairly impacts low-income communities. The Relicensing Project won a significant legislative victory in Olympia last month when it got a bill passed that grants amnesty to more than 200,000 low-income drivers with suspended licenses, and sets up a statewide system to provide low-income drivers with hardship hearings and payment plans for their tickets.
