Leading Practices

Since 2014, the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Construction Careers project has allocated more than $20,000,000 to labor union and workforce development board partnerships to diversify and expand building and construction trade union membership. The project is expanding union approved pre-apprenticeships that use the Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) and includes a statewide database of the union validated programs. The initiative is funded by revenues through California Senate Bill 1: The Road Repair and Accountability Act, the Clean Energy Jobs Act Program and carbon market cap and trade revenues administered by the California Air Resources Board. Funds have been used to support local partnerships among workforce boards, unions, community colleges and other partners in East San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County and the Central Valley.

Colorado established a statewide Office of Employee Ownership to increase the number of employee-owned companies in the state by administering a statewide tax credit (HB-21-1311) for employee-owned companies. It provides grants for feasibility studies and technical assistance to help owners sell to their employees and educates businesses about employee ownership through storytelling and building a network of employee-owned companies.

Cupcakin' Bake Shop is a Northern-California-based business with multiple locations. The company is committed to maintaining job quality as it grows. The owner offers her workers a living wage, career-building opportunities, wealth-building opportunities and a fair and engaging workplace. Cupcakin’ partnered with Pacific Community Ventures and their Good Jobs, Good Business program to implement job quality practices, including tracking and measuring changes over time, as well as to receive access to capital to scale operations efficiently and prepare the business for the future while supporting quality jobs.

In 2022, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) provided a comprehensive overview with detailed examples of how local governments are protecting workers’ rights by establishing local labor standards offices to enforce workers’ rights laws, establishing worker boards and councils, passing local worker protections laws, setting job quality standards for contractors and internal employers and championing workers issues through local public leadership.

Firebrand Bakery in Oakland, California, is a bakery owned by and for its employees through an employee ownership trust. Firebrand has 11 purposes baked into its corporate charter such as obligations to hire people who are formerly homeless or incarcerated, year-end profit sharing with all employees, creating a diverse and equitable supply chain and operating the company for long-term success rather than short-term profit.

In 2021, Harris County established an Essential Workers Board to advise the county on programs and policies that support essential workers. All members must be “low-income essential workers,” with at least one worker representative from the airport or transportation, construction, domestic work or home care, education or child care, grocery, convenience or drug store, health care or public health, janitorial, food services, hospitality or leisure services, and retail industries. In addition to advising the county on its overall approach to protecting essential workers’ rights and providing a public forum, the board is also tasked with providing feedback on the county’s purchasing and contracting policies; workforce development programs; tax abatement and incentive policies; community benefits agreements; distribution of federal COVID-19 relief and recovery funds; disaster preparedness and recovery programs; OSHA trainings; independent monitoring of local, state, and federal public health and labor laws and inclusive economic development planning.

Founded in 1938, JVS has demonstrated new ways to diversify revenue for and through their job training programs, including charging employers for placement services. In 2018, the organization had $16M in revenue from a mix of private and public funding sources.

A 2013 Kentucky law established the Center for Education and Workforce Statistics, which collects and links high-quality actionable data from five state agencies in order to improve education and workforce programs in the state. By providing data sets, publishing reports and fulfilling research requests, the center provides state-specific insights with appropriate data privacy and data access measures.

In 2021, Pacific Gateway, the local workforce development board, partnered in the development and implementation of a project labor agreement with the city of Long Beach (CA), local unions and private developers to fill local hire and other project labor agreements for public works projects. Pacific Gateway recruits and trains diverse applicants and refers them to the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) pre-apprenticeship program at Long Beach City College.

The Maricopa Workforce Development Board partners with building and construction trade registered apprenticeship programs, including the Phoenix Painters and Allied Trades, the Southwest Carpenters Training Fund and the Laborers Training School. The workforce board provides $4,000 through Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) adult funds for related instruction and offers case management and supportive services to apprentices, generally in the first year of the apprenticeship program. In 2019, the US Department of Labor did a case study on Maricopa’s apprenticeship programs and found that WIOA Adult Program Apprenticeship participants had a 94% employment rate during the second quarter after program exit, 22 points higher than the statewide rate for the WIOA Adult Program.

Miami, Florida, amended its revolving loan fund policies to allow its community-development-block-grant-funded loan program to finance the conversion of existing businesses to employee-owned structures, with specific callouts for worker cooperatives.

Minneapolis offers a free co-op feasibility training for potential and new cooperatives and existing businesses interested in converting into a cooperative. The program also provides one-on-one technical assistance (consulting).

In 2016, Minneapolis, Minnesota, created the Labor Standards Enforcement Division within its Department of Civil Rights. Through a team of five employees, the office enforces the city’s paid sick and safe time, minimum wage, wage theft and freelance worker protection laws.

First signed into law in 1937, this legislation outlines minimum national program standards for registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). The systems, structures and policies outlined in this legislation provide the framework for local workforce agencies to fund union registered apprenticeship programs (as well as non-union programs) through other federal funds, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and SNAP employment and training to subsidize wages and classroom instruction related to RAP on-the-job learning and related instruction.

This 1935 law protects workplace democracy by providing employees at private-sector workplaces the fundamental right to seek better working conditions and designation of representation without fear of retaliation.

New York City developed the nation’s largest municipal initiative for education and technical assistance around employee ownership and conversion. Business owners can access $10,000 of technical assistance services, utilize the Owners2Owners hotline and have targeted financing and grant opportunities for worker cooperatives.

North Coast Small Business Development Center in Humboldt County, California, surveyed its small business clients about succession plans and used federal and state small business development center funding to provide education and advising on employee ownership as a succession and exit strategy to local business owners.

In June 2020, voters amended the city charter to create the Philadelphia Department of Labor. The Office of Worker Protections, located within the Department of Labor, has a total of nine full-time employees and enforces wage theft, paid sick leave and fair work week laws; laws covering specific industries (domestic worker bill of rights, wrongful discharge, recall and/or retention of hotel, travel and hospitality workers) and more. The office established a domestic worker task force and has been tasked with creating a portable benefits system for domestic workers, one of the nation’s first. In addition, in 2020 and 2021, the office partnered with worker organizations on the Philadelphia Worker Relief Fund, helping to distribute more than $2,200,000 to 2,820 families left out of COVID-19 government relief.

Worksystems Inc., serves as the workforce development board for the City of Portland and Multnomah and Washington Counties. The FY2021 budget projected $27,000,000 in revenue, $12,5000,000 from federal sources like the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and federal grants, $5,000,000 from state contracts including SNAP employment and training, and $9,500,000 in local government and philanthropic funds.

In 2020, the mayor’s office of Providence, Rhode Island, issued an executive order to set the stage for gathering and analyzing the necessary data to understand the current state of inequities in the community.