New York Jobs With Justice / Urban Agenda

Urban Agenda and New York Jobs with Justice are two non-profit organizations in the process of merging together to form a stronger, more effective organization. Urban Agenda is well-known for its policy and research capacity oriented towards creating a truly sustainable New York City – thriving, green, and just. New York Jobs with Justice is respected for its organizing and campaign coordination capacity and has served as a permanent coalition for worker and community organizations in New York City and State. Through an extensive assessment of our current roles within New York’s progressive infrastructure and a comprehensive power analysis, we have decided to merge our core capacities and consolidate resources over the course of 2010 to create a unified organization that can have increased impact at the city and state level. We believe our merger and other ambitious efforts by allied organizations can catalyze critical and necessary change in our local and statewide progressive movement, allowing us to strengthen our collective infrastructure and be far more effective in meeting the formidable economic, social, governance, and ecological challenges we face in the 21st century. We would like to invite other organizations who are working to build more cohesive and coordinated movement infrastructure in their cities and/or states—through mergers and other approaches—to join in a conversation about transcending traditional organizational identities, structures and personalities in order to critically assess our current institutional structures, shed what isn’t working and re-build organizations and a movement that retain the strengths of the past and build into the future.

Urban Agenda, in 2008, had a vision for the new green economy in New York City. Yet it lacked the capacity and the desire to dictate such a vision for all New Yorkers. So, Urban Agenda convened the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable. Taking over 1.5 years, the Roundtable brought together over 170 stakeholders from green employers, community-based organizations, labor unions, workforce development providers, and environmental and environmental justice groups, committed to creating good, green jobs in New York City — jobs that enhance or sustain the environment while offering family-supporting wages, benefits, and opportunities for career advancement. The result was the “Green Collar Jobs Roadmap” which outlines 44 recommendations, some practical, some visionary, some revolutionary, for how New York City can move forward into the new green economy. This process created a movement in itself, the momentum of which is carrying the process forward into the implementation stage. Participants in this interactive workshop will learn the nuts and bolts of how to engage multiple stakeholders with divergent interests in a collaborative process that not only re-envisions our economy, but creates the democratic and participatory conditions that will be necessary in such an economy. We also welcome any organizations or individuals that have embarked on a similar process to share their stories with us.

Urban Agenda and New York Jobs with Justice are two non-profit organizations in the process of merging together to form a stronger, more effective organization. Urban Agenda is well-known for its policy and research capacity oriented towards creating a truly sustainable New York City – thriving, green, and just. New York Jobs with Justice is respected for its organizing and campaign coordination capacity and has served as a permanent coalition for worker and community organizations in New York City and State. Through an extensive assessment of our current roles within New York’s progressive infrastructure and a comprehensive power analysis, we have decided to merge our core capacities and consolidate resources over the course of 2010 to create a unified organization that can have increased impact at the city and state level. We believe our merger and other ambitious efforts by allied organizations can catalyze critical and necessary change in our local and statewide progressive movement, allowing us to strengthen our collective infrastructure and be far more effective in meeting the formidable economic, social, governance, and ecological challenges we face in the 21st century. We would like to invite other organizations who are working to build more cohesive and coordinated movement infrastructure in their cities and/or states—through mergers and other approaches—to join in a conversation about transcending traditional organizational identities, structures and personalities in order to critically assess our current institutional structures, shed what isn’t working and re-build organizations and a movement that retain the strengths of the past and build into the future.

Urban Agenda, in 2008, had a vision for the new green economy in New York City. Yet it lacked the capacity and the desire to dictate such a vision for all New Yorkers. So, Urban Agenda convened the Green Collar Jobs Roundtable. Taking over 1.5 years, the Roundtable brought together over 170 stakeholders from green employers, community-based organizations, labor unions, workforce development providers, and environmental and environmental justice groups, committed to creating good, green jobs in New York City — jobs that enhance or sustain the environment while offering family-supporting wages, benefits, and opportunities for career advancement. The result was the “Green Collar Jobs Roadmap” which outlines 44 recommendations, some practical, some visionary, some revolutionary, for how New York City can move forward into the new green economy. This process created a movement in itself, the momentum of which is carrying the process forward into the implementation stage. Participants in this interactive workshop will learn the nuts and bolts of how to engage multiple stakeholders with divergent interests in a collaborative process that not only re-envisions our economy, but creates the democratic and participatory conditions that will be necessary in such an economy. We also welcome any organizations or individuals that have embarked on a similar process to share their stories with us.