Membership
WHO ARE OUR MEMBERS
WSWA’s members are low-income workers who care for the elderly and disabled, do cleaning, landscaping, construction, restaurant work and more.
WHY WE ORGANIZE
In unity there is strength! By joining together we can build a floor that no one can fall below and unite with students, small businesses, clergy and professionals.
WHAT ARE OUR GOALS
Our goal is to eliminate poverty in all its forms everywhere, which also requires stopping the environmental destruction of our planet.
Join as a member
Membership is open to anyone who is, has been, or in the future may be employed in service work or other types of low-paid work – domestic work, temporary work or work done as an independent contractor. WSWA members do childcare and care for the elderly and disabled, work in tourism and hospitality and food service, hotel and office maintenance, security, construction and landscaping. They are the essential workers, backbone of the economy, yet often receive wages that don’t cover survival needs for a family. WSWA members include the elderly and those too disabled to work, living on inadequate fixed incomes.
Build a self-help membership benefit program
Members are entitled to share in a group of benefits, designed by members for members, that respond to the needs of service workers in the Bay Area as identified by the workers themselves. As a self-help organization, members participate in the building, functioning and oversight of the benefit program. The Benefit Program is designed to meet as many of the immediate survival needs of our members as possible so that members can organize to eliminate the cause of their problems – poverty – at the root. The expansion of the program is overseen by the membership leadership body, the Bay Area Workers Benefit Council (WBC), that oversees the organization’s work in the Bay Area.
Host house meetings in your neighborhood
WSWA canvassers convey the message that we must become a united group to become a force to be reckoned with. Interested members host membership house meetings in their homes or yards, and invite newly signed members and other neighbors, family and friends to learn about WSWA and how to join with others to forge long-term solutions to problems we face collectively.
Build the Bay Area Workers Benefit Council
The Bay Area Workers Benefit Council (WBC) is a body of members who take on leadership roles in the organization. WBC decisions are made by consensus. Members meet to coordinate the action WSWA will take towards problems and needs expressed by the Council members and how the Benefit Program will grow in the interests of working people in the Bay Area.
Become a Delegate
As part of the WBC, members can take on a role as a delegate to bring the concerns of other members working in the same industry, worksite or living in the same neighborhood to the WBC meetings. Delegates publicize organizational activities and benefits available to association members, as well as help run distributions of food, clothing and other supplies in their neighborhoods.