The Organization

Brandworkers was founded in 2007 based on the principle that marginalized workers have the unique right and unique power to determine their destiny at work and contribute to transforming the larger society.  We are the country’s first membership organization led by frontline workers in the fast-growing local food manufacturing industry.

Brandworkers members work in factories manufacturing a diverse array of specialty food including artisan bread, seafood products, dumplings, hummus, and more. Our organizing centers the leadership and prioritizes the demands of workers of color, particularly women (including trans women), indigenous, and immigrant workers.

After more than a decade of building power and developing our organizing model in New York City, Brandworkers is growing worker-led transformation to local food manufacturing in North Jersey.

The Role

You will serve as Brandworkers NJ’s first staff member, initiating our organizing for the first time outside of New York City. Through one-on-one meetings achieved by door knocking, street outreach, and member referrals, you’ll help highly exploited food factory workers build strong organizing committees and win their justice demands.

Your overarching goal will be to help workers develop as leaders and gain the know-how to operate Brandworkers’ NJ at the factory level, across the industry, and spanning all aspects of the organization. You’ll utilize outstanding organizing fundamentals to plan your time, identify influential workers, actively listen for deeply felt issues, create and refine organizing messages, maintain charts, track data, and help workers overcome obstacles to victory.

This role is based in the field rather than in an office. You’ll be seeking meetings with workers at their homes, in front of their factories, on their commutes, and through civic or faith institutions of which they are a part.

Brandworkers is committed to organizer sustainability and will do everything possible to assist you to have a schedule that works for you. It’s important to note that organizing in local food manufacturing does routinely involve weekend work when food factory workers are more likely to have a day off. Very early mornings and late nights are also common to meet workers from various shifts at factories that sometimes operate 24 hours a day.

Qualifications

• You have at least four years of experience as a worker center or union organizer. In that role, you’ve utilized one-on-one organizing meetings to identify influential workers and help them form organizing committees.

• You have started or led a project or organization from the beginning or from a very early stage.

• You are fluent in Spanish and at least proficient in English.

• You are wholly committed to applying a gender and racial justice lens to decisions, plans, and activities every day. You have a proven, crystal clear alignment with working class communities of color.

• Your movement journey shows your ability to express the two pillars of Brandworkers’ culture: Members First Always and Commitment to Victory.

• You genuinely welcome feedback, are candid about your point of view, continuously seek improvement, act on learnings, and are willing to dissent.

• You prefer working in accountable environments where results are delivered, goals are measured, and obstacles are identified and overcome.

Working at Brandworkers

Brandworkers aspires to be a leader in non-profit staff sustainability. We strive for an intersectional, anti-oppressive environment including in race and gender-equitable allocation of workload, dedicated spaces for staff members with marginalized identities, direction on issues from staffers directly impacted, a culture that promotes safety for dissent and challenges to privilege, and more.

You can count on your co-workers to support you, hear you, deal with trauma with you, and celebrate victories with you. We expect and encourage staff to take time off to take care of family issues, personal healing, and household matters that are difficult to schedule outside of work hours.

We are open to a variety of experience levels for this role with a starting salary from $42,500 – $57,500. The organization provides fully-paid health and dental benefits, as well as participation in Brandworkers’ retirement program. Among other benefits, we offer generous vacation and professional development policies, a pre-tax commuter and health savings benefit, cell phone reimbursement, and a sabbatical policy. You’ll find a supportive environment to express your leadership and creativity for the movement.

To apply, please send a meaningful cover letter and your resume to jobs [at] brandworkers.org. Please include your pronouns. We welcome learning about any needs you have to feel safe in the application process. Applications are considered as they arrive, so please apply promptly if interested and no later than June 7, 2019.

Brandworkers strongly encourages applications from people of color, women, immigrants, indigenous people, LGBT people, and other traditionally oppressed communities.