This profile describes Linda Nguyen’s efforts to establish Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) during her tenure with Jobs to Move America, a policy advocacy organization. JMA has taken an innovative approach to CBAs, developing contracts with businesses that receive public infrastructure funding. This resource can be useful for practitioners exploring different ways to structure CBAs to support quality jobs as well as those interested in the intersection of job quality and environmental advocacy.

This research report offers an overview of labor trends and systemic barriers to employment to contextualize Black women’s current economic and occupational status. The authors explore the history of Black women’s economic mobility; how occupational segregation, discrimination, and stereotypes impact Black women’s experiences in the labor market; and offer recommendations aimed at increasing economic equity. This resource may be of particular interest to individuals and organizations focused on learning about or addressing systemic barriers to race and gender equity in the labor market.

This report examines definitions and research on job quality and provides a job quality framework based on findings. It focuses on job quality elements with the potential to support economic mobility. Designed to provide common ground for discussions around job quality, this report may be useful for practitioners and employers interested in exploring job quality frameworks and the link between job quality elements, worker well-being, and upward mobility.

This report addresses worsening job quality during the COVID-19 pandemic, using data from the 2020 Great Jobs Survey and building on the 2019 Great Jobs report. Among other insights, the report addresses how COVID-19 had a differential impact on high wage versus low wage workers, how job quality before the pandemic predicted job quality changes during the pandemic, and how COVID-19 has created new job quality challenges, such as increased remote work.

This report includes 23 practices to embed racial equity into your organization by developing, recognizing, and promoting frontline employees of color. Employers and practitioners can use this resource to structure and implement equitable policies for advancement to strengthen their business.

This resource provides guidance on language to help organizations more effectively communicate about racial economic equity. This document includes definitions of important terms and concepts for understanding racial economic equity, the racial wealth divide, and racial wealth equity as well as design guidelines on visually depicting diverse communities. This guide has relevance for a range of organizations interested in communicating about the important link between racial equity and job quality for those who want to advance racial equity.

Building a race equity culture can support organizations’ capacity to reduce racial disparities within their organizations and through their external strategies. This resource is designed to support practitioners to strengthen internal organizational culture as it relates to race equity. This publication can support a range of organizations to prioritize racial equity, embed equitable practices, and monitor outcomes.

The Employee Ownership Toolkit is a step-by-step guide for transitioning a company to cooperative ownership. The experience of South Mountain Company is described in detail, helping bridge the gap between theory and practice. Definitions of certain technical terms, particularly concerning finance, are also provided.

This webpage offers guidance on how to protect the health and safety of domestic workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Included are resources specifically for different domestic work occupations, such as housecleaners, nannies, and caregivers. There is guidance on how to speak with employers about returning to work and sample agreements between workers and employers to ensure safety in the workplace. These resources are geared towards domestic workers, but can also be used by worker advocates, workforce professionals, and employers to support worker safety–and can be applied to public health emergencies beyond COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, food and drinking establishments were an important part of the business fabric in communities across the country, and these businesses employed over 12 million people. But as food businesses lost customers during the crisis, millions of restaurant workers lost work. Food and drinking establishments have been an important source of employment for women and people of color, who are over-represented in the industry’s lower paid occupations.

In this conversation we talk about ideas for business practices, public policies, and partnerships, including an innovative public/private effort that’s addressing the interests that workers, small business owners, and communities all share in a thriving restaurant sector.