We use outreach, direct action and organizing to improve working conditions. We have won over half a million dollars in back pay for wronged workers! We advocate for effective changes in the law that will improve all workers' lives, like increasing the minimum wage and getting paid sick days for everyone. We have also won basic positive changes at workplaces such as breaks for workers. We educate high school and college students, as well as workers, about their rights and how to fight back.
* who is young workers united?
Young Workers United works with anyone who works in the service sector, which means restaurant workers, mall workers or anyone who does customer service work. YWU members work at restaurants, bars, retail stores and are also unemployed. Many of us are students. YWU is multiracial and multicultural. We operate in both Spanish and English. We were founded in September 2002.
YWU works together to improve conditions for any service sector worker who is being treated unfairly. We use a lot of direct action, which means picketing, hollering, handing out flyers and otherwise making issues loud and public. YWU is all about young and immigrant workers taking control of their lives and reforming unrewarding jobs!
We also teach each other skills like how to speak in public, lead meetings and organize our fellow workers and sutudents. We make space to talk about issues from the state of the economy, to homophobia, to gender relations.
* who runs YWU?
We all do. Various committees, led by workers and students, make strategic and organizational decisions. There are currently two committees. Worker Justice/ Policy is a merger of two English-speaking committees that work on grassroots policy advocacy, self-education, and worker justice campaigns. El Comite de Justicia para Trabajadores is a Spanish-speaking committee of workers and students that works on education, immigration issues, and worker justice campaigns. Both committees support each other's work and have fluid memberships. If there is an interest for a new committee, you can propose it at a membership meeting.
* who supports YWU?
We depend on the community to support our important work. Please consider making a donation to Young Workers United. When we raise standards in the lowest paying jobs, everyone benefits!
You can send a check to Young Workers United, P.O. Box 420963, San Francisco, CA 94142.
Our work has also been supported by generous grants from private foundations such as Agape, Akonadi Foundation, The Arca Foundation, The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, Common Counsel/Abelard, The Diane Middleton Foundation, French-American Charitable Trust, Funnel Community Foundation, Jewish Fund for Justice, The Ms. Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, New World Foundation, Norman Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, Resist, The Rosenberg Foundation, Themis Fund, Tides, Vanguard Public Foundation, and The Women's Foundation of Calfiornia.
* is YWU a union?
No. We are a workers’ center, a new kind of organization that uses creative tactics to improve working conditions and bring together the community. However, we support workers forming and participating in unions wherever there's a union to be part of. We represent the young and immigrant workers in jobs that no union plans to organize in the foreseeable future.
* how can i solve my problem/ volunteer with/ join YWU?
E-mail us at youngworkersunited@gmail.com. Call us at 415.621.4155. Come to a Worker Justice Committee meeting!
