Navigating Philadelphia as a new immigrant can be daunting, says Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of Juntos, a community-led, Latinx immigrant organization and Racial & Economic Justice Fund grantee. “Philadelphia is classified as a sanctuary city, but we still have community members who come in every day and say, I was in court, and I couldn’t get language interpretation, or the police hung up on me because I don’t speak English.”

Founded over 20 years ago in response to the growing wave of migrants arriving in Philadelphia, Juntos responds to the needs and issues that immigrants face, guided by the principle that everyone has the right to quality education and the freedom to live with dignity regardless of immigration status. Says Núñez, “There are new immigrants arriving every day and they’re being met with a city that does not have adequate resources to address their needs. They are essentially alone.”

As an organization, Juntos has seen significant growth in the last few years. They are currently developing a youth leadership development pipeline through Fuerza, Juntos’ youth leadership committee. “Fuerza members can apply to be ambassadors, which are 12-week paid positions where they learn organizing skills like public speaking, canvassing, and political education around campaigns,” says Núñez.

Juntos takes community leadership seriously. This January they ratified a membership model in which the governance of the organization has essentially been passed to its members. Members assemble monthly and vote on major organizational decisions. Says Núñez, “We have a growing membership, which shows that there’s a need in the community and that our work is necessary, and that we need to be the strongest organization that we can be to better respond to the challenges that we’re facing.”

For the last decade, housekeepers at the University of Pennsylvania were trapped in a two-tier wage structure that kept half of them in a permanent bottom tier, earning $5 less per hour than coworkers performing the same work. In June, Philadelphia Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), a Racial & Economic Justice Fund grantee, helped the 500+ housekeepers defeat the two-tier system and win raises for all 550 members of Teamsters Local 115, which also includes groundskeepers and truck drivers.  

“The five-year contract puts every Teamster at UPenn on a progression to top pay,” says TDU staff organizer Liana Kallman. “This year, the first tier is making $25.12 and the second tier is at $20.90, but by the end of the contract every housekeeper will get $28.68.”   

TDU is a worker-led organization that mobilizes Teamsters to fight for higher wages, build power on the job, and win new leadership and new direction for their union.   

Longtime Teamster Local 115 members contacted TDU because they felt the two-tier system was destroying their union, Kallman says. TDU helped them organize the housekeepers, many of whom are East African immigrant women whose first language is not English. TDU created a bargaining survey, which was translated into Amharic and Spanish, and helped plan a rally outside the university president’s office that drew 70 workers, community members, and press.   

“Housekeepers had never rallied on campus,” Kallman says. “Some of the Ethiopian women were told, ‘You’re not allowed to rally, not in your uniform. You could get fired for this.’ They were afraid, but they learned that they have power and they can win.”   

TDU is currently organizing UPS workers, whose contract expires next year, staff organizer Paul Prescod says: “UPS Part timers, who are disproportionately workers of color, are in the union but it’s almost like another tier of workers—they’re paid very low, sometimes less than Amazon part timers. We want to create more full-time jobs and raise wages.”  

In Pennsylvania, women returning from prison often have to wait more than a month to access critical Medicaid benefits. For women with substance use disorder who were receiving medication-assisted treatment in prison, this disruption in care can be fatal, says Rev. Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons, chief executive officer of Why Not Prosper, a Racial & Economic Justice Fund and Phoebus Criminal Justice Initiative grantee that supports women’s re-entry journey from prison back to their communities.   

“When women are released, they’re supposed to get their benefits activated in five days, but it usually takes 32 days,” Rev. Simmons says. “If a woman comes home with opioid addiction and can’t get her medication-assisted treatment, she’ll use and she’ll die. We lose too many women this way.”   

Why Not Prosper is taking its fight to Harrisburg, educating legislators about the healthcare crisis women face inside and outside of prisons. “We want every woman to be released from jail with at least one month of their prescription,” Rev. Simmons says. “That way, if it does take that long to get their benefits, they’ve got a prescription to hold them for 30 days. We want that to be the state law. Women’s lives depend on it.”   

Why Not Prosper has made powerful allies, including PA Senator Art Haywood, who chairs the Health and Human Services Committee, and First Lady Frances Wolf. Mrs. Wolf recently visited Why Not Prosper’s Germantown office to meet with formerly incarcerated women and bring their stories to Governor Wolf.   

Rev. Simmons founded Why Not Prosper in 2001. As a formerly incarcerated woman who once experienced addiction, she brings the lessons she learned to help other women on their re-entry journey. Why Not Prosper offers a continuum of programs that include pre-release mentoring, residential services, job training, and help reuniting with family. “Formerly incarcerated people are human beings first,” she says. “They need to be approached with non-judgment, love, and support.”