Debt Collective
Debt Collective
Building collective power via a new debtors' union
Debt Collective
Debt Collective is a debtors’ union fighting to cancel debts and defend millions of households. Join them to build a world where college is publicly funded, healthcare is universal and housing is guaranteed for all.
Debt Collective is building new forms of collective power for debtors.
Debt Collective is the nation’s first debtors’ union, and they organize around intersecting forms of indebtedness – from medical debt to carceral debt, housing debt to student debt – that characterize life for working people, disproportionately in Black and Brown communities.
The Debt Collective’s work shows that people do not go into debt because they live beyond their means. They go into debt because they are denied the means to live. Housing, education, and healthcare are all out of reach for most people, and people are even forced into debt for their own incarceration. The Debt Collective organizes debtors, including artists, to collectivize their debt and their political voice to force debt relief and changes to the legal and financial system to protect individuals from predatory financial practices. Debt Collective is building power to decommodify basic needs—education, food, shelter, and health—and make sure everyone has a material share of what is rightfully theirs.. Its recent significant wins of student debt relief in 2022 have elevated conversations about how debt exacerbates the racial wealth gap.
W.A.G.E. - Working Artists and the Greater Economy
W.A.G.E. - Working Artists and the Greater Economy
Minimum payment standards for artists' labor
W.A.G.E. - Working Artists and the Greater Economy
Since its founding in 2008, W.A.G.E.’s work has developed in service of a single achievable goal—regulating the payment of artist fees in the nonprofit sector—but they emerge from a long tradition of artists organizing around the issue of remuneration for cultural work in the United States that dates back to the 1930s. W.A.G.E.’s mission is to establish sustainable economic relationships between artists and the institutions that contract artists' labor, and to introduce mechanisms for self-regulation into the art field that collectively bring about a more equitable distribution of its economy.
We are so inspired by W.A.G.E.’s work to fight unpaid labor in the arts, and build new models of collective bargaining and power for the field.
WAGENCY - WAGENCY is an artists' solidarity union and a platform for negotiating the fair remuneration of artistic labor in the nonprofit sector. Supplying artists with digital tools and the collective agency to negotiate W.A.G.E. fees or withhold labor when not paid them, WAGENCY is a new model for organizing contingent workers. W.A.G.E. understands that artists ARE workers and deserve fair pay for their labor – WAGENCY empowers them to negotiate it.
We are so inspired by W.A.G.E.’s work to fight unpaid labor in the arts, and build new models of collective bargaining and power for the field.
A Guaranteed Income for the 20th Century
A Guaranteed Income for the 20th Century
A report from The New School Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy
Naomi Zewde, Kyle Strickland, Kelly Capatosto, Ari Glogower, Darrick Hamilton
The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy conducts research to shed light on the structures of inequality and develop knowledge about the pivotal roles of race, power, and social stratification. Building relationships beyond the academy, institute researchers work to identify, implement, and scale transformative ideas to promote economic inclusion, civic empowerment, and social equity. The institute also works to foster the next generation of scholars bringing diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and new thinking to society’s biggest challenges.
Over the past several years, the idea of establishing a minimum income floor via a Guaranteed Income has gained traction, with several pilots offering opportunities to see the benefits of these policies in action.
We support establishing a minimum income floor for all, and believe widespread adoption of the policy would make meaningful progress towards our broader vision of protections for all. However, we are not convinced by the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that would deliver the same amount of support to everyone, regardless of their income level. Instead, we believe any guaranteed income program should seek to bring all individuals up to a minimum standard, providing more support to those in greater need, and narrowing wage and opportunity gaps across the economy.
For these reasons, we find the New School’s guaranteed income proposal particularly compelling. The authors suggest updating the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in a way that makes it function more like a true guaranteed income, removing the various income requirements and benefit differences that define the EITC today. This seems like good sense to us!
Arts Workers in California
Arts Workers in California
Creating a more inclusive social contract to meet arts workers' and other independent contractors' needs
This report outlines the working arrangements of California’s arts workers and sheds new light on the challenges and issues they face, particularly when working as independent contractors.
The Center for Cultural Innovation, with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commissioned the Arts Workers in California report to help arts advocates, labor advocates, and policy makers create more inclusive systems that expand protections and benefits for all types of workers.
The report outlines the working arrangements of California’s arts workers and sheds new light on the challenges and issues they face, particularly when working as independent contractors. It also identifies policy shifts to update systems, for those in California or nationally, that could be more inclusive of artists and those who similarly operate outside the traditional bounds of employment. Such protections include collective bargaining power for all types of workers, access to health insurance, family leave, anti-discrimination, and savings toward retirement.
In many ways, this report is the founding document that underpins Sol Center’s work. It’s worth a read!
Survival Economies: Black Informality in Chicago
Survival Economies
Black informality in Chicago
Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago. Forward by Richard Wallace, Equity and Transformation
Nik Theodore is a Professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC)’s Department of Urban Planning and Policy. His work focuses on economic restructuring, labor standards, and worker organizing. Richard Wallace is the founder and director of Equity and Transformation (EAT), an organization which fights for social and economic equity for Black workers in informal work and those who have been formerly incarcerated.
EAT was founded in 2018 by post-incarcerated Black people from Chicago, in an effort to uplift the voices and power of Black informal workers in the US. The mission of EAT is to build social and economic equity for Black workers engaged in the informal economy.
Survival Economies is an important report that explores the ways many Black informal workers in Chicago get by from day to day. Excluded from the benefits and protections of traditional employment, they rely on informal activities, like selling loose cigarettes or offering informal childcare, for income.
Expanding protections for all requires finding solutions that will work for those who are most excluded from the current safety net, like the Black, informal workers who make up the membership of Equity and Transformation (EAT) Chicago, whose work and lives are documented in this report.
EAT was founded in 2018 by post-incarcerated Black people from Chicago, in an effort to uplift the voices and power of Black informal workers in the US. The mission of EAT is to build social and economic equity for Black workers engaged in the informal economy.
Learn more about EAT Chicago’s important work here.
Guilded - A Freelancer-Owned Cooperative
Guilded - A Freelancer-Owned Cooperative
Protecting freelancers against wage theft
Guilded Freelancer Cooperative
Guilded is a cooperative committed to empowering freelance workers. They are incubated and informed by the work of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Guilded provides contract management, invoicing, guaranteed payments, tax preparation, and health care.
Guilded offers an exciting new model to build collective power through shared ownership, shared governance, and shared protection.
Guilded is a freelancer-owned cooperative that provides 1099 workers with access to timely guaranteed payment, backend invoicing and tax services, and a range of worker benefits like licensing, insurance, and direct primary care. Guilded creates financial stability while providing freelancers with opportunities to build relationships with other gig workers, collective agency and power, and financial assets as cooperative owners.
Incubated by the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC), the national grassroots membership organization for worker cooperatives, Guilded offers an exciting new model to build collective power through shared ownership, shared governance, and shared protection.