Director of Basebuilding

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Working Washington and Fair Work Center seek a Director of Basebuilding to bring experience, vision, strategy, and leadership to our efforts to build worker power through targeted outreach, popular education, leadership development, and organizing. This position will report to the Executive Director and will serve on the leadership team of the organization. 

The Director of Basebuilding will manage a team of outreach specialists, educators, and organizers. This role will be responsible for carrying out a strategy to identify, grow, and engage our base of working people  across the state. The basebuilding team aims to build worker power through popular education, leadership development, and organizing workers to take collective action to expand or enforce their rights. The basebuilding team will work closely with our campaigns and legal teams, as well as with other community partners and organizations.  

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION: 

We are workers, united across different industries to improve our working conditions and our lives. We are coming together as a multiracial community of working people, including immigrants, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ workers.

We build power through education, organizing, and enforcement. We work to raise and uphold standards in the workplace. And we fight for economic and racial justice in our communities. Here’s how: 

EDUCATION – We learn together about our rights as workers, and we develop the tools to exercise our rights and make them  real.

ORGANIZING – We organize, speak out, and take action to win changes in our workplaces and our lives. Together, we transform industry practices, change laws, and shift norms around the value of work.

ENFORCEMENT – We hold employers accountable to workplace laws and standards through legal services, and we use the law creatively to help build our movement.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Leadership

• Collaborate across teams to develop a collective framework and vision for growing our base of workers. Build and manage organizational infrastructure to support our base. Invest in staff development on basebuilding strategies and tactics through training and coaching.
• Work with the Executive Director & leadership team to develop and implement racially just programmatic criteria, systems of community accountability, and the overall programmatic vision for the organization 
• Serve as a member of the leadership team and support organization-wide growth and development

Management & Supervision

• Supervise staff in identifying, connecting with, and recruiting new workers into our basebuilding program, and in supporting outreach efforts across the organization 
• Supervise staff conducting know your rights training under specific grants and education programs
• Provide staff with direction, input and feedback in weekly check-ins, ongoing performance evaluation, and goal setting processes
• Promote power-sharing among the team and invest in developing the skills and leadership of direct reports/staff
• In consultation with the Executive Director and Director of Operations, recruit well-qualified program staff and ensure that all staff receive orientation and appropriate training
• Oversee performance of grants, maintain relationships with funders, assist in grant writing, and provide programmatic administrative support
• Other duties as assigned by the Executive Director 

Basebuilding

• Support staff to develop and facilitate popular education workshops on workers’ rights in Seattle and Washington State, and regularly assess and update our curriculum and training practices 
• Lead the design and implementation of new strategies for engaging and building the leadership of low-wage workers, in particular, low-wage workers of color; while also supporting and sustaining strategies already underway
• Support staff in collaborating with workers to solve problems, enforce their rights, and organize for changes in the workplace
• Develop and carry out innovative outreach strategies in collaboration with staff, the leadership team, and the Executive Director
• Oversee small donor fundraising and engagement program as part of basebuilding program

QUALIFICATIONS:

Required Qualifications

• A demonstrated commitment to economic, social, and racial justice issues and understanding of challenges facing immigrant and refugee communities, communities of color, and low-wage workers;
• At least 5 years’ experience working in community education, training, organizing, and membership or base building, or any combination of experience that demonstrates an ability to connect with and support workers and build a base
• Experience as a supervisor and coach of organizers and educators, and a strong interest in working collaboratively and developing leadership 
• Strong track record in base-building, campaigning, and leadership development
• Experience working across departments or teams within an organization and with other community partners
• Familiarity with labor and employment laws (local, state, federal) or ability to learn new subject matter quickly
• Success as independent, self-motivated, and strong leader with a demonstrated ability for time and project management and interest in owning and developing programs at a growing organization
• Excellent interpersonal, writing, and communication skills
• Results-focused and organized
• Experience with CRM Databases   

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience working in low-wage work
• Experience as an organizer 
• Writing, communications and social media experience
• Proficiency in two or more languages strongly preferred
• A track record of effectiveness in base-building, staff and member training and leadership development 
• Experience developing programs to provide leadership development, political education, popular education, and skills development among workers, members, or constituents
• Experience coaching organizers in carrying out member engagement and member leadership development 
• Hands on experience with popular education 
• Experience with low dollar, individual donation programs 

Salary and Benefits: This is a salaried exempt position. $80,000-95,000 per year. This position comes with robust benefits – health, vision, dental, retirement, vacation, and commuter benefits (ORCA card). 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, this job is remote. When we can safely resume working in person again, our office is located in Lower Queen Anne, Seattle. 

To Apply: Please send a cover letter and resume to josh@fairworkcenter.org with your name and “Director of Basebuilding” in the subject line. Applications will be accepted through March 17, 2021 and reviewed on a rolling basis. 

If you need disability, language or other accommodation in the application process, please also contact Josh Fogt at josh@fairworkcenter.org.

Fair Work Center and Working Washington is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We strongly encourage people from communities most negatively affected by the income inequality crisis to apply, particularly: people of color, immigrants, women and feminine-identified people, lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people, and people with disabilities. We seek candidates whose lived experiences reflect the lived experiences of the workers we support. Experience in retail, food service, health care, domestic work, gig work, and construction, some of the common industries in which we reach workers, is welcomed.