UFE's Training of Trainers Institute involves exploring the causes and consequences of income and wealth inequality and providing participants with educational tools to help inform their communities and inspire political action.

Transformative education—which includes reflection, thoughtful analysis, and learning from each other—is vital to the success of any movement for social and economic justice. In order to challenge the economic status quo, we first need to make sense of the roots of inequality and, more broadly, the ways in which systems create and perpetuate class, race, and gender inequality. Working toward a shared understanding of how we got here and a shared vision for the future will help us build a cross-race, cross-class movement for an equitable, democratic, and sustainable economy.

Our Popular Economics Education Team is once again offering UFE's renowned Training of Trainers Institute May 28-31, 2015 in Auburndale, MA at the Walker Conference Center (details below). We invite organizers, activists, educators, students, and others across the U.S. who want to join and advance the movement for a just economy, to attend.

Jeannette Huezo, Steve Schnapp, and Riahl O'Malley, will help you learn how to engage people in dialogue through UFE-style popular economics education workshops that demystify the economy and creatively educate, inspire, and mobilize people to take political action.

DATE:
Thursday, May 28 – ­Sunday, May 31, 2015
On-site check-in from 3:00–6:00 p.m. on Thursday May 28;
The Institute ends at 1:30 p.m.  on May 31.

LOCATION:
The Walker Center in Auburndale, MA (30 minutes from Boston’s Logan Airport and accessible by public transportation)

 

About the Institute

Is this training right for me?

What will I learn about?

What will particpants do?

What is the registration process?

 

Watch this video from one of our previous Training of Trainers.

 

UFE's Training of Trainers Institute: A Reflection from United for a Fair Economy on Vimeo.

 

IT IS RIGHT FOR YOU IF YOU ARE:

• An organizer, leader, activist, teacher, or trainer engaged in campaigns for economic or social justice, and/or
• If you are seeking to improve your training and facilitation skills in order to more effectively present information and engage people in dialogue about the economy. 

YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT:

• National economic trends and the rules, policies, and structures that make the economy a disaster for most of us and a goldmine for a few
• Viewing the economy through race and gender lenses;
• Some history about popular resistance to economic inequality in the U.S.;
• Strategies to build a powerful social movement that will address the economic divides; and Principles and practices of popular education.  

YOU WILL HAVE OPPORTUNITIES TO: 

• Work in small groups to plan and practice leading either UFE's or original popular economics education workshop activities;
• Receive constructive feedback on how to effectively present workshops and lead productive discussions on economic inequality;
• Discuss how to best adapt UFE's materials to your communities and constituents;
• Practice responding to challenging questions and difficult workshop situations; and
• Network, build solidarity and open doors for collaboration with others working for economic justice.

THE PROGRAM INCLUDES PRESENTATIONS OF CREATIVE AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES FROM UFE'S WORKSHOPS, INCLUDING: 

• The Growing Divide - The Roots of Economic Security
• Closing the Racial Wealth Divide
• Immigration and the Growing Divide  

SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION:

• To register click here.  Application due April 17^th
• After we have received your registration your participation will be confirmed no later than April 30^th.  We recommend singing up early so you can secure your own flight at a reasonable price
• Participants should arrive at the Walker Center on Thursday, May 28, between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m.; the program begins after dinner on Thursday and concludes after lunch on Sunday, May 31.
• Sessions are conducted in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings.
• Breaks are provided throughout the day to allow participants to catch their breath, reflect on and network with other participants.

Registration fee is based on a sliding scale based on whether you are attending as an invididual, or with the support of an organization. Cost includes the institute fee, materials, meals, and room/board (double occupancy). Transportation is NOT included. A minimum $25 deposit is required upon admission into the training. Payment in full is due one week before the start of the Institute. We offer additional reductions to organizations sending two or more participants.

Space is limited and preference is given to applicants who are able to attend the full Institute. Some materials, including a detailed agenda for the Institute, short readings, and logistical information, will be sent to all registrants prior to the training to help participants prepare for the Institute.

 

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Contact Riahl O'Malley via email ([email protected]) or phone at 827-277-7868 x127.

In the State of the Union address, President Obama called for strengthening tax benefits for middle class and low-income working families, and for investing more in child care, early education, and higher education, including making the first two years of community college free. 99 percent of the impact of the President’s tax reform proposal would be on the top 1 percent, and more than 80 percent would come from the top 0.1 percent (those with incomes over $2 million). Responsible Wealth is gathering signatures in support of the President's plan.

For the past few weeks, the nation’s attention has focused on an unlikely epicenter of race relations, a Quik-Trip convenience store about fifteen miles north of St. Louis. It was there that 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was gunned down by a white police officer, and it is there that a groundswell of sympathy and frustration has prompted the community, and nation, to act. The town of Ferguson was rocked by this tragic event, and has responded in an incredible way – by organizing. In addition to memorials, people are setting up voter registration tables, and this moment is on its way to becoming a movement with racial inequity at the heart of the conversation.

We believe that, in the words of Frederick Douglas, “power concedes nothing without a demand.” We at United for a Fair Economy have a very simple demand: let’s build an economy that works for Ferguson, and for the south side of Chicago, and for everywhere in between. Let’s build a system that provides the same level of economic stability for communities of color as exists in middle class suburbs or affluent communities. Just as racial profiling is at the heart of this tragic event, the racial wealth divide should be a part of this conversation, and that is something that we’ve been working to bring into public consciousness for over a decade.

We understand that systemic racism will always exist as long as our economy doesn’t match our ideals. That’s why we were founded twenty years ago with a simple goal: to work towards a fair economy. We live up to this ambitious mission, and our name says it all.

We are united to build an economy that provides equal opportunity and equal justice for people who have been marginalized in our society based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or social class.

We are united to build an economy that creates jobs with dignity, that provide living wages, and where workers have the democratic right to organize and share the wealth produced by their labor.

We are united to create a robust public sector that works for the common good, funded through progressive taxes, and accountable to the people, and together, we will build this economy in a way that is sustainable and equitable for future citizens of our planet.

We remain vigilant, and our hearts are with those building a movement in Ferguson, in Queens, NY, and every other community that has been rocked by violence.

AN AUG. 5 editorial praised Walmart for providing nontraditional banking options for the “underbanked” in select stores. While offering simple financial services such as low-cost check cashing sounds like a good idea, we are left to wonder what is motivating the largest retailer in the world to enter into this business.

On the surface this looks like Walmart is providing a needed service to the community, but we don’t need to dig deep to see that this is another strategy to increase profits.

While we believe that there is a great need for affordable and accessible banking options, we support offering these services through an established public institution: the US Post Office. This option would address the needs of the financially excluded, provide banking options to working-class communities and communities of color, ease the financial burden of being poor, and ensure that wage earners can provide for their family without being preyed upon by businesses.Ben Jackson, a financial analyst for Mercator Advisory Group, recently told Forbes, “The big strategy is capturing people’s wallets as soon as they are filled. If a customer’s wallet is filled at a Walmart store, then it’s likely the customer will do some incremental shopping there too.” While this motivation may seem different from that of payday lenders that charge outlandish fees, in both cases they are driven by profiting off of low-income consumers.

Michael Young
Director, Tax FairnessOrganizing Collaborative
United for a Fair Economy

Russ Davis
Executive director
Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

Printed 8/14/13 in the Boston Globe

UFE's Training of Trainers Institute involves exploring the causes and consequences of income and wealth inequality and providing participants with educational tools to help inform their communities and inspire political action.

Transformative education—which includes reflection, thoughtful analysis, and learning from each other—is vital to the success of any movement for social and economic justice. In order to challenge the economic status quo, we first need to make sense of the roots of inequality and, more broadly, the ways in which systems create and perpetuate class, race, and gender inequality. Working toward a shared understanding of how we got here and a shared vision for the future will help us build a cross-race, cross-class movement for an equitable, democratic, and sustainable economy.

Our Popular Economics Education Team is once again co-hosting UFE's renowned Training of Trainers Institute in October 2014 in New Market, TN, with the Highlander Center (details below). We invite organizers, activists, educators, students, and others across the U.S. who want to join and advance the movement for a just economy, to attend.

Jeannette Huezo, Steve Schnapp, and Riahl O'Malley, UFE's Education Coordinators, will help you learn how to engage people in dialogue through UFE-style popular economics education workshops that demystify the economy and creatively educate, inspire, and mobilize people to take political action.

DATE:
Thursday, October 23 – ­Sunday, October 26, 2014
On-site check-in from 3:00–6:00 p.m. on October 23, 2014;
The Institute ends at 1:30 p.m.  on October 26.

LOCATION:
Highlander Research and Education Center (Newmarket, TN)
Located in the foothills of the beautiful Smoky Mountains, about an hour from the McGhee Tyson Airport near Knoxville.

 

About the Institute

IT IS RIGHT FOR YOU IF YOU ARE:
•  An organizer, leader, activist, teacher, or trainer engaged in campaigns for economic or social justice, and/or
•  If you are seeking to improve your training and facilitation skills in order to more effectively present information and engage people in dialogue about the economy.

YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT:
•  National economic trends and the rules, policies, and structures that make the economy a disaster for most of us and a goldmine for a few
•  Viewing the economy through race and gender lenses;
•  Some history about popular resistance to economic inequality in the U.S.;
•  Strategies to build a powerful social movement that will address the economic divides; and Principles and practices of popular education.

YOU WILL HAVE OPPORTUNITIES TO: 
•  Work in small groups to plan and practice leading either UFE's or original popular economics education workshop activities;
•  Receive constructive feedback on how to effectively present workshops and lead productive discussions on economic inequality; 
•  Discuss how to best adapt UFE's materials to your communities and constituents;
•  Practice responding to challenging questions and difficult workshop situations; and
•  Network, build solidarity and open doors for collaboration with others working for economic justice.

THE PROGRAM INCLUDES PRESENTATIONS OF CREATIVE AND ENGAGING ACTIVITIES FROM UFE'S WORKSHOPS, INCLUDING: 
•  The Growing Divide - The Roots of Economic Security
•  Closing the Racial Wealth Divide
•  Immigration and the Growing Divide

SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION:
•  Participants should arrive at Highlander on Thursday, October 23, between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m.; the program begins after dinner on Thursday and concludes after lunch on Sunday, October 26.
•  Sessions are conducted in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings.
•  Breaks are provided throughout the day to allow participants to catch their breath, reflect on and network with other participants.

Registration fee is based on a sliding scale (see below) and includes the Institute fee, materials, meals, and room/board (double occupancy). Transportation is NOT included. A minimum $25 deposit is required with your application. Payment in full is due one week before the start of the Institute. We offer additional reductions to organizations sending two or more participants.

Space is limited and preference is given to applicants who are able to attend the full Institute. Some materials, including a detailed agenda for the Institute, short readings, and logistical information, will be sent to all registrants prior to the training to help participants prepare for the Institute.

 

Organization Budget	Attendee Fee
$500,000 and higher	$500
$250,000-500,000	$400
$100,000-$250,000	$300
Less than $100,000	$200

 

 

 

 

 

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Still Undecided? Watch this video from one of our previous Training of Trainers.

UFE's Training of Trainers Institute: A Reflection from United for a Fair Economy on Vimeo.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Contact Jeannette Huezo ([email protected], 857-277-7881) or Steve Schnapp ([email protected], 857-277-7868) or Riahl O'Malley ([email protected], 827-277-7868 x127).

Across the nation, workers are rallying to hoist wages for the lowest-paid jobs into the reality of today’s economy. Since 2009, the federal minimum wage has remained $7.25/hour — compensation so inadequate that it holds back hardworking adults from advancing their educations, providing for their families, and participating fully in the economic life of their communities.

At United for a Fair Economy, we believe that low-wage worker organizing is at the forefront of the fight for economic justice. As spelled out in our guiding principles, "Jobs with dignity and living wages, where workers have the democratic right to organize and share the wealth produced by their labor" is at the core of a fair economy.

That’s why we together—UFE’s staff, partners, and our committed supporters like many of you reading this today—are devoting all available resources to support the work of low-wage worker organizing. In fact, it’s one of two major priorities enshrined in our new five-year strategic plan (unveiled in December).

So now and into the future, UFE will be providing groups on the ground with our renowned popular education curricula, acting as an ally in state and regional struggles, keeping our supporters informed and engaged, and encouraging high-wealth allies to speak out in cross-class solidarity. This is how we will leave our mark!

Why is a minimum wage increase important?

It’s high time we replace the outdated image of the minimum wage worker as a teenager living at home, working for pocket money after school. The median age of fast food workers, for instance, is now 29 years old, and 68% are the primary wage-earners for their families. This is a racial and gender justice issue, too: Minimum wage workers are disproportionately people of color, and almost 66% are women.

For the sake of our nation’s economy, too, a hike in the lowest wages is long overdue. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation since 1968, it would now be about $11/hour. Had it kept up with productivity gains, it would be much higher ($16.54, according to the Center for Economic Policy Research), and if it had risen at the rate of CEO pay, well, we at UFE might very well be looking for work—that is, our work wouldn’t be necessary

Meanwhile, the vise of a patently inadequate minimum wage keeps workers from contributing to the economic recovery. According to a recent data analysis by the Center for American Progress,

Raising the minimum wage would be good for our economy. A higher minimum wage not only increases workers’ incomes—which is sorely needed to boost demand and get the economy going—but it also reduces turnover, cuts the costs that low-road employers impose on taxpayers, and pushes businesses toward a high-road, high-human-capital model.

Increasing the wealth of the super-rich doesn’t boost the economy, as they already have most of the goods they want — whereas when low-income people have more money in their pockets, they spend it. 

So what’s happening, and how is UFE involved?

A number of groups, including SEIU, are leading the "Fight for 15" campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in many cities. Some voters are out ahead: In Seattle, candidates for both the city council and the mayor’s office won in November on $15/hour minimum wage platforms and began working on the issue immediately, while in nearby SeaTac, WA, voters approved a $15 minimum wage, effective this year. (Unfortunately a recent court ruling, if upheld, will exclude airport employees from the new law.)

United for a Fair Economy is proud to do our part! UFE is working with SEIU to develop educational curricula for the "Fight for 15" campaigns, just as we did with the group’s earlier "Fight for a Fair Economy" campaign to organize fast food workers. It was the recent series of strikes by fast food workers that brought this issue fully into the public’s view and ignited the current wave of minimum wage organizing.

United for a Fair Economy is working with Interfaith Worker Justice to organize a faith-based workshop on inequality at their national conference in Chicago this June, a gathering of faith leaders, organizers, and leaders from worker centers around the nation. Looking to widen our involvement further, we have begun dialogues with other grassroots labor organizing groups about ways to work in partnership and strengthen the broader movement for wage justice.

Here at home, UFE is a member of RaiseUp Massachusetts, a coalition to raise the state minimum wage to $10.50 by 2016, and more importantly to tie it to inflation for the future. We’ve sent alerts to our supporters and spoke at a recent lobby day (where there was also a screening of Reich's Inequality for All). The wage hike has been passed by the MA House of Representatives, and the push is on to make sure the full package of changes is enacted this year.

There are minimum wage initiatives on the ballot or advancing in state houses in dozens of states this year. If you are organizing for low-wage worker justice in your community, let us know! We want to help.

Sources and Additional Reading:

• Median age of fast food workers is 29 years old: Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics
• 68% of fast food workers are the main wage earners for their families: Center for Labor Research and Education
• Almost two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women: National Women’s Law Center
• 42% of minimum wage workers are people of color: Restaurant Opportunities Center
• According to the Center for Labor Research and Education, the families of more than half of fast food workers are enrolled in public assistance programs.
• When low-income people have more money in their pockets, they spend it: Chicago Fed Letter

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post calls it "perhaps the single best economic speech of his presidency." The folks on Fox News were whining about "redistribution." Picking up a cab in Baltimore the next morning, the first thing the driver asked me was whether I saw the President's speech… He loved it. However one ranks it, Pres. Obama's speech on Wednesday nailed it, calling economic inequality the "defining challenge of our time."

He clearly articulated the history, much as we do at United for a Fair Economy, of how we built the middle class in America. Spoiler: It was not a product of unfettered markets and heroic bootstrapping. It was built through deliberate public investments, a broad tax system based on ability-to-pay, and rules-changes that created ladders of opportunity and which helped ensure that workers shared in the prosperity their labor made possible.

"Now, the premise that we’re all created equal is the opening line in the American story.  And while we don’t promise equal outcomes, we have strived to deliver equal opportunity -- the idea that success doesn’t depend on being born into wealth or privilege, it depends on effort and merit.  And with every chapter we’ve added to that story, we’ve worked hard to put those words into practice."

After citing a litany of public investments from Abraham Lincoln's administration to that of LBJ–land grant colleges, the eight hour day, busting up of monopolies, Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid–he added:

"Together, we forged a New Deal, declared a War on Poverty in a great society.  We built a ladder of opportunity to climb, and stretched out a safety net beneath so that if we fell, it wouldn’t be too far, and we could bounce back.  And as a result, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known.  And for the three decades after World War II, it was the engine of our prosperity."

The President acknowledged that not all Americans benefitted. Racism and Jim Crow kept many down.

"The economy didn’t always work for everyone.  Racial discrimination locked millions out of poverty -- or out of opportunity.  Women were too often confined to a handful of often poorly paid professions.  And it was only through painstaking struggle that more women, and minorities, and Americans with disabilities began to win the right to more fairly and fully participate in the economy."

Then something changed.

The President did not talk about this in his speech, but as we have argued in our "State of the Dream" reports and The Color of Wealth, there is a connection between the civil rights victories, the War on Poverty, and the subsequent racialization of the very public investments that previously built the middle class. That is, once Blacks and others began to benefit from these public investments, conservatives were able to play upon White fears and demonize government. Public supports that once built the White middle class became "hand outs," and Reagan, during his 1976 presidential bid, introduced the world to the term "welfare queen."

Nonetheless, Pres. Obama acknowledged the tectonic shifts that took place in the US economy beginning in the 1970s, as government's active role in fostering a strong middle class started to shrink. In the president’s words, “starting in the late ‘70s, this social compact began to unravel.”

"As values of community broke down, and competitive pressure increased, businesses lobbied Washington to weaken unions and the value of the minimum wage.  As a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither.  And for a certain period of time, we could ignore this weakening economic foundation, in part because more families were relying on two earners as women entered the workforce.  We took on more debt financed by a juiced-up housing market.  But when the music stopped, and the crisis hit, millions of families were stripped of whatever cushion they had left.

...So the basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed.  In fact, this trend towards growing inequality is not unique to America’s market economy.  Across the developed world, inequality has increased.  Some of you may have seen just last week, the Pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length.  “How can it be,” he wrote, “that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

Then the President shifted from inequality to the erosion of social mobility, bringing us to where we are today as increasing inequality collides with decreasing social mobility.

"The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough.  But the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action.  We are a better country than this.

So let me repeat:  The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe."

In UFE's 2012 book, The Self-Made Myth, we quote former Genzyme CFO Jim Sherblom who, after speaking of the many ways public investments and an active government helped he and his wife succeed financially, acknowledged the dramatic shifts occurring since that will now shape the lives of his own children, "We are going to be a very different society with very different expectations about what is possible for a young, ambitious person who wants to do well in life..."

The President, in his speech goes on to talk about not just the moral injustice of it all, but the damaging consequences this inequality has on our economy, trust in each other and in our institutions, and our democracy, adding that, "The decades-long shifts in the economy have hurt all groups: poor and middle class; inner city and rural folks; men and women; and Americans of all races."

Armed with this deeper understanding, the next question is: What do we do about it? That's where the rubber meets the road. The President made a case for an important governmental role in rebuilding our frayed “ladders of opportunity.”

He threw his support behind the fast-food workers striking across the country for an increased minimum wage. He spoke about closing tax loopholes, education, Social Security, food stamps, and more. Speaking about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, he also spoke of the necessity of closing the health coverage gap, quoting Dr. King, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” This is a theme we'll be talking about in our upcoming State of the Dream report.

The full speech is worth a read, but one of the core take-aways is that history matters… as much or more than data points. One can quote unemployment statistics, but outside the context of history and that deeper understanding, people will just fill in the blanks with their own preconceived notions of why one group is more likely to be unemployed than another, or why wealth is piling up in the hands of the few.

Narrative and a deep understanding of how we got here is critical to understanding how we move forward. Or, as others would say, you can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been.

Now, onward to the next fight.