Worker Power Institute (formerly Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy, or CASE) was launched In Arizona in 2008 when several labor unions and community groups came together to form a new organization to advocate for economic, social, and racial justice for working families.

 

We’ve built upon strategies used by labor and community organizations in the 1990s – particularly UNITE HERE Local 11– who combined grassroots political campaigns and aggressive workplace organizing to beat back anti-immigration political forces and anti-worker trends in the hospitality industry to transform Los Angeles County into a progressive bulwark for working people in California. We are proud to be doing the same in Arizona and, recently, other parts of the United States.

 

Since 2012, Worker Power has enrolled over 100,000 voters into Arizona’s permanent vote-by-mail list, most of them BIPOC and youth voters. By doing so, we have increased voter participation among underrepresented communities in federal, state, and local elections.

 

Over the last fifteen years, Worker Power Institute has conducted advocacy campaigns for better jobs; fair economic development; democracy defense; fair redistricting; national immigration reform; and immigrants’ rights in Arizona. 

 

Worker Power also offered direct financial assistance grants and unemployment insurance application assistance to service workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

While continuing to grow our team in Arizona, we have expanded our training programs, field expertise, and community organizing capacities in other areas of the country where our approach can make a national impact on the living conditions of working-class families.