Social work and labor unions share goals of improving human conditions and helping people achieve a healthy, successful, and joyful life. Historically, these common visions have facilitated powerful alliances between unions and community leaders—including social workers and our agencies. At the same time, social workers’ emphasis on the primacy of human relationships and often, discomfort with power dynamics, can complicate efforts to collaborate, and organizing campaigns in social work agencies can be as contentious as in any workplace. In this session, participants will learn about a social work scholar’s construction of an archive of the history of an organizing effort—Stand Up KC—that built power with and for low-wage workers, changing conversations about economic justice and advancing tangible wins.

A panel of social workers will share their experiences at the intersection of social work’s commitment to economic justice and the struggles in organized labor, as workers, advocates, and researchers. Together, social workers will consider the implications of this body of work and these accumulated experiences on today’s issues of workers’ rights, ongoing unionization efforts, and social work’s struggle for economic justice.

CEU hours: 2