race & the construction of the modern labor market

olinlibref

We’ve made a reading list for people who are interested in understanding race and the construction of the modern labor market.  This seven-book list is chronological, starting with Reconstruction and moving through to the present.

Right now, the U.S. stimulus package is trying to get people back to work.  Will stimulus money perpetuate this legacy, or undo it?

“These books help us understand how unemployment and poverty were structured into minority communities over time,” said Dayna Cunningham, CoLab Executive Director.  “We need to understand the ways in which it was done, so that we know what needs to be undone.”

1. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, by W. E. B. Du Bois

2. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, by Robin Kelley

3. When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, by Ira Katznelson

4. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City, by Martha Biondi

5. The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, by Lisa Goluboff

6. Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States, by Margaret Weir

7. Whiteness as Property, by Cheryl I. Harris

photo credit: olinlibref on flickr

New Orleans, Planning, Students, Reflection

It’s interesting, as a CoLab employee, to have interviewed, recorded, edited, and now watch this piece.  As a student, I was also a NOLA fellow, but back then we weren’t called “NOLA fellows.” In summer of 2007, I went with a dozen other MIT students to New Orleans to labor under then newly appointed recovery czar, Ed Blakely.

Over the course of 7 weeks, we drafted 23 target neighborhood redevelopment “plans” (more like priority lists) for Blakely and the mayor.  It seemed like an inane undertaking when first presented to us, but we threw ourselves into the task, seeing that there was really no one else there to do the work.  Blakely put us young idealists to good use during our short assignment.  In fact, I doubt that anyone will ever entrust me with that much responsibility so immediately ever again.

That summer, I devoted the most love and attention to the plan we wrote for the Lafitte/Treme neighborhood. Bringing back the vacant Robert’s grocery store at Broad and Bienville was high on the priority list.  One afternoon, while foot-surveying properties in the 90 degree heat, we stopped to chat with a local homeowner.   He said he had to drive 45 minutes to go grocery shopping.  Sadly, he may still be driving that distance to feed himself and his family.

Nevertheless, I’m encouraged by the fact that this store might actually re-open.  I think this is the third or fourth time that MIT students have committed themselves to this effort.  I’m hopeful that this time we’ve reached the tipping point.

community organizing 101, Eastern Kentucky

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Left, KFTC organizer Colleen Unroe sits with long-time KFTC member and former chairperson Daymon Morgan. Right, Unroe enjoys a 2008 KFTC fundraiser.

Colleen Unroe has been an organizer with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth for more than 6 years, long before the 2008 presidential campaign illuminated the lives and careers of community organizers.  Unroe developed her passion for organizing during summer jobs in college, when she provided emergency housing assistance to Appalachian families.  One woman, who needed the same house repairs season after season due to repeat flooding because of a nearby coal mine, taught Unroe that the solutions lie in the people most impacted by an issue.  Those people who were victims of destructive mining practices needed to get together and demand better.

“Organizing doesn’t ensure that you will win,” says Unroe, “but things certainly won’t change if people don’t come together and try.”  Unroe is one of the many people who think it’s worth the investment.

Civic engagement has been KFTC’s primary tool in its ongoing campaign for environmental and economic justice.  It has proven a difficult battle.  As Unroe said, “It’s like the phrase that Gandhi has: ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win’.  At least the space we’re in, with mountaintop removal and coal and climate change, we’ve gone through the stage of being ignored and laughed at, and now they’re fighting back.”

In this 6-minute audio clip, you’ll hear a portion of an interview between Unroe and CoLab staff, Alexa Mills.  This is a great listen for people who want to know more about organizing, organizers, and Appalachia.

 

MIT CoLab

Massachusetts Green Justice Coalition Wins Good Retrofits and Jobs

Chinese Progressive Association members show their signs at the October 6th Energy Efficiency Advisory Council (EEAC) meeting.

Chinese Progressive Association members show their signs at the October 6th Energy Efficiency Advisory Council (EEAC) meeting.

The Massachusetts Green Communities Act, passed over a year ago, demands a 10% to 25% reduction in greenhouse gases by the year 2020. But today, energy consumption is rising in Massachusetts, and utility company reduction programs have long saved less than 1% of the state’s electrical use per year.

Massachusetts’ energy reduction goals looked impossible. This October, the state found a solution from an unexpected source: working class communities and unions.

The Green Justice Coalition, a group of community organizations, labor unions, and environmental organizations, designed a plan that seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create solid construction jobs in the state’s highest unemployment communities, and provide up-front financing so working class families can save money and do deep retrofits on their homes.

On October 27th, the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council (EEAC) voted to adopt the Green Justice Coalition plan.

125 members of the Green Justice Coalition's base organizations held up signs asking the EEAC to adopt Green Justice demands.

125 members of the Green Justice Coalition's base organizations held up signs asking the EEAC to adopt Green Justice demands.

An Economic and Environmental Justice Crisis

Until now, the state’s utilities have marketed energy services to individual consumers.  Small contractors work customer by customer; there are no efficiencies of scale.  The Green Justice Coalition got out of this box with a concept called “bundling”.   Community based organizations will go door to door in neighborhoods they know, and mobilize residents.   Once they assemble hundreds of homes in one retrofit contract, high road and union contractors can successfully bid on the work.  They can hire community residents with good pay and benefits, thorough on-the-job training, and proper job classification.

“Bundling” is a business solution because it sets up contracts that union contractors can win.   It is also a power solution because it unites the interests of community organizations and unions.

The Green Justice Solution

Victory! Green Justice activists congratulate EEAC council members for adopting the Coalition's demands.

Victory! Green Justice activists congratulate EEAC council members for adopting the Coalition's demands.

The state’s utility companies have written the Green Justice formula into their three-year plans, which they will start implementing in two months.   On October 27th, the state earmarked $1.4 billion in ratepayer fees and other funds to pay for the plan, which includes community organizing work.  The Green Justice Coalition is now negotiating pilot projects with the state’s two largest utility companies, NSTAR and National Grid.  Lessons learned from the initial pilots will be plowed into more new pilots.

The Green Justice agreement is a triple win.  It sets high standards for the new, rapidly expanding residential energy efficiency industry.  It brings jobs and services to the working class neighborhoods that need them most.   Finally, the Green Justice Solution will cut greenhouse gas emissions and help the state meet its climate goals, especially in marginalized communities with the draftiest, oldest, and least energy efficient homes.

Green Justice Coalition members clap for EEAC members as they go into the October 27th hearing.

Green Justice Coalition members clap for EEAC members as they leave the hearing.

A Testament to Base Building

Without grassroots power, the green economy would pass us by.  Energy efficiency programs would reach few people in our communities.  Those they did reach couldn’t afford the up-front costs, and they certainly wouldn’t get hired to do the retrofit work.  The new green economy would be Business As Usual.

The Green Justice Coalition changed this story by mobilizing coalition members’ base for EEAC hearings, surveying lower income neighborhoods, and gathering thousands of cards supporting our key demands.  We visited all the EEAC members and got the most sympathetic to carry our demands into backroom negotiations.  We met with utility executives and showed them how we could multiply their efficiency work.

Now we’re going to implement our pilots and make sure they expand to the entire state.

Obama Visits MIT

On Friday, October 23rd, twenty CoLab staff and students had the opportunity to hear President Obama speak on energy, new technologies, and the environment. Obama put great stock in MIT’s capacity for innovation. CoLab was inspired by Obama’s commitment to new energy technologies.

For CoLab, the key questions are: How will energy efficiency technologies reach communities that have historically been the last to receive infrastructure improvements, and how can communities use these technologies to develop new job and business opportunities?

Listen to Obama’s 20-minute speech here:
 

MIT CoLab

audio & video credit: James P. Thompson IV

You can watch the full speech, courtesy of MIT World, here:

getting that stimulus $ into communities

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Greensboro, NC. Beloved Community Center started planning to get US Stimulus dollars as soon as the bill was signed, in February 2008.  They convened a stimulus working group comprised of people with disparate career paths, ranging from pastors to building contractors, but an aligned mission: to get stimulus dollars to work for their communities.

CoLab worked with several community organizations and city halls across the country this summer, and found a common scenario: Town Hall, understaffed and overwhelmed, envisioned spending its stimulus dollars on a one-off project, like new boilers for the school or solar panels for the library.   Meanwhile, the local community-based organization envisioned green jobs training programs for unemployed young people and former felons, putting newly-trained staff to work in their own neighborhoods, and new urban agriculture initiatives.  Community organizations had to fight for their money.

In the three-minute clip below, Listen to Demetria Ledbetter of BCC, and Major Sanders, an architect and collaborator with BCC, describe how they got their first stimulus check to repair broken windows, do some job training, and save on heating and cooling bills at BCC’s Homeless Hospitality House.

 

MIT CoLab

a community garden digs deep

At the Beloved Community Center (BCC) in Greensboro, NC, homeless neighbors and community members alike tend a fertile garden located in BCC’s backyard. Reverend Nelson Johnson, pastor at Faith Community Church and Executive Director at BCC, envisioned a garden that would contribute to an alternative economy for the church’s friends and homeless neighbors. Guests at BCC’s Homeless Hospitality House, which is directly across the street from the garden, tend the vegetables and harvest them for community members. Next year, they will begin selling produce to local businesses as well.

biodiesel!

biodiesel@MIT a student-run campus organization, has spent four years working to get a biodiesel processor installed on campus to process used vegetable oil from MIT dining as fuel for the Tech Shuttle Bus. One they solved the technical aspects of a biodiesel system, they thought the rest would be easy. The group quickly learned, however, that overcoming institutional hurdles would be much more challenging than the science behind biodiesel. Watch the movie to see their story.

the ideal community

Residents of central Brooklyn envision their ideal community. Although everyone was interviewed privately and separately, their visions and fears are strikingly, beautifully, in line.

 

MIT CoLab

what is the CoLab?

Watch the movie to hear CoLab staff, fellows, and students describe what they are doing as of June, 2009. We gathered all of the material for this piece during a two-hour Media 101 workshop in which participants had to practice photographing and interviewing one another.