For 32 years, JWJ has focused on organizing people and money in order to build power and economic security for workers, their families and communities. For the last several years, JWJ has been advocating for policies that help women and people of color gain access to high-quality construction careers (paying, on average, $26 an hour) from which they have historically been excluded. In the process, women and people of color gain skills to use their voices to build power and increase the economic security of themselves, their children and their communities. We have done so by leveraging our broad relationships and bringing together partners who are often siloed from one another. We are using the voices and stories of women and people of color who have already benefited from high-paying construction jobs to challenge partners from across the community development value chain who don’t often work together – national foundations, local foundations, labor unions and local community organizing groups – new constellations of actors who could advance community economic development in a new way.
