At EARNCon, we will convene members from our 55 EARN groups, representing 43 states and the District of Columbia, together with grassroots organizers and labor partners, for much-needed community building after two years of isolation in the pandemic and to develop a shared agenda for state and local policymaking that prioritizes the needs of workers and their families, builds power among workers and communities, and centers Black and Brown people.
We are excited to host EARNCon in Cleveland, a city that for much of its history has been synonymous with innovation and progress. It’s the city where the term “Rock and Roll” was coined, where the first electrified public square was illuminated, and the first automobile was sold. In 1967, it became the first major city in the United States to elect a Black mayor.
During EARNCon, attendees will discuss the most pressing issues confronting workers leading into 2023, ranging from wages and labor standards to climate. The conference will provide a launch point for research and policy development that centers workers, communities of color, and women and serves to advance legislation that improves labor standards and strengthens worker power. This year, we will highlight the wave of unionization and labor organizing that has spread throughout the country and discuss what it means for state and local policymaking.
The work ahead of us is ambitious as we focus on an equitable recovery for all workers and center those that have kept our economy running through a challenging pandemic. We hope you will join us and your fellow network leaders in economics, policy, labor, academia, and community organizing to develop ideas and strategies for building worker power, improving job quality, and building equitable state and local economies.
Click here to view additional details about EARNCon, including our mandatory COVID-19 protocols.
The Executive Directors’ Strategy Meeting is an opportunity for leaders from the network to strengthen relationships; learn about their peers’ work; learn about EPI’s projects and plans for EARN; and strategize together on how we can drive progressive economic and racial justice policymaking at the state and local level.
In this session, participants will use CPS data to perform analyses in statistical software packages Stata and R.
During EARNCon, attendees will discuss the most pressing issues confronting workers leading into 2023, ranging from wages and labor standards to climate. The conference will provide a launch point for research and policy development that centers workers, communities of color, and women and serves to advance legislation that improves labor standards and strengthens worker power.
During this plenary, speakers will welcome EARN groups to the conference and set the stage for what is to come. Panelists will discuss the history of the labor movement in Cleveland and draw parallels between unionization campaigns in Ohio and the rest of the country.
This session will feature workers sharing their motivations and strategies for organizing new unions in public services, health care, and other frontline occupations, while illustrating opportunities to expand state and local policies that advance worker power.
This session will inform conference attendees of the policies, strategies, and actions advocated for during the March on Washington and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and then to use these social policy requests as a metric to determine which policies were implemented, which have yet to be realized, and what this means for racial economic justice.
This session will provide an overview of how app-based companies’ well-funded attempts to erode state and local employment and labor laws pose threats to basic worker rights across the country.
Speakers Danielle Alvarado, Fair Work Center Teri Castillo, San Antonio City Council District 5 Terri Gerstein, Harvard Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute LiJia Gong, Local Progress Mazahir Salih, Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa Session Description This session will provide an overview of all of the different ways (even when […]
The plenary will educate conference attendees about the history of Black, Latinx and AAPI workers’ involvement in labor unions and labor organizing and the important role labor unions can play in proactively advancing racial and gender equity in the labor market.
This session, led in coordination with the National Women's Law Center, will address the ways in which work toward income security, worker justice, and economic justice is deeply intertwined with the fight for abortion access, particularly for Black and Brown women.
This session aims to inform EARNCON attendees about strategies that policymakers and advocates are using to advance pro-worker policymaking and supporting the labor movement at the state and local level, with an emphasis on states with anti-labor policies in place, such as “Right-to-Work” laws.
Our discussion will highlight ways to view the intersection of economic and public health outcomes, and how these perspectives can be brought together to design better policy in a post-COVID America.
We are thrilled about the prospect of seeing you and hope you’ll join us this year in Cleveland at the Westin Cleveland Downtown from Wednesday, September 28 – Friday, September 30, 2022.