Our Work

People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) was founded by a group of welfare recipients in 1997 so that low-income people could have a space to impact the policies that affect their lives. Since that time, POWER has helped thousands of low-income people find their own voice and find ways to end poverty. Now approaching its 10th year, POWER continues to build the power of low-income people in San Francisco to improve the conditions in their communities and in their workplaces.

The backbone of POWER’s work are our two organizing projects: the Bayview Organizing Project, which unites low-income residents of San Francisco’s last-remaining African American neighborhood in a fight for affordable housing, living wage employment and environmental justice in the face of corporate developers’ attempts to gentrify the community; and the Women Workers’ Project which organizes domestic workers who are mostly immigrant and women of color to win justice in an industry that thrives on our exploitation.

All of our work revolves around a three-pronged organizing model that POWER has developed, which involves:

* Community Action Organizing: The strength of POWER’s work where low-income people come together to collectively identify and take action to resolve the problems that we experience in our communities and our workplaces;

* Strategic Alliance Building: POWER places a priority on building long-standing partnerships with other grassroots organizations locally, nationally and internationally;

* Leadership Development: In order for low-income people to develop real solutions to the problems that we face, low-income people must have the opportunity to develop our analysis of the world around us and to hone the skills necessary to resolve those problems.

POWER’s model of achieving permanent change is rooted in a bottom-up strategy. The people who are most impacted by the racist, sexist and exploitative systems that we live under know what needs to be changed and have the interest to change it. We cannot wait or expect that anyone else will do it for us; we have to lead a movement of all of those willing to make real and permanent change in the world. That’s why POWER’s work is rooted in and led by low-income women and people of color.

The focus of POWER’s work is San Francisco, yet we also recognize that the problems that we face in the Bay Area are structural and are linked to the problems around the globe. It is for this reason that POWER sees our work as being directly connected to movements for justice and equality around the world.

COMMUNITY ACTION ORGANIZING

Our Community Action Organizing work is made up of two approaches: Organize the Unorganized and Wage Strategic Campaigns.

Throughout history, oppressed and exploited peoples have built organization to increase their collective strength to make change. Everyday, POWER knocks on doors in housing projects and talks to people in parks and laundromats, inviting them to join with other low-income people to fight for real change.

The thing that unites all of the members in the Community Action Organizing projects is a desire to make change. POWER members make that change through Waging Strategic Campaigns. Low-income people come together to collectively identify problems and to devise solutions to those problems. In this process, low-income people become skilled community leaders, grassroots policy experts and efficient facilitators.

Currently, POWER has two Community Action Organizing projects:

* Bayview Organizing Project: The Bayview Organizing Project unites low-income residents in San Francisco’s last-remaining African American neighborhood in a fight for affordable housing, living wage employment and environmental justice in the face of corporate developers’ attempts to gentrify the community

* Women Worker’s Project: Currently, the Women Worker’s Project organizes Latina immigrants and women of color who work as nannies and house-cleaners in the informal domestic work industry. This project aims to fight for basic worker protections to be afforded to domestic workers, yet additionally strives to raise the standard for all low-wage workers