Founded in early 2013, Coworker.org is a digital organizing platform for workers’ rights. Through a combination of online tools, media outreach and research-based strategic support, it strives to help employees have a voice in the modern workplace.
Coworker.org used its Voqal Fund grant to develop technology, media and organizing strategies that:
• enabled workers to connect to fellow employees and organize to change their working conditions;
• helped community-based groups connect with supply-chain and franchise workers beyond geography limits; and
• promoted a replicable organizing model that workers are adopting for new campaigns.
Workers have used the Coworker.org platform in more than 70 campaigns at Starbucks, T-Mobile, Darden Restaurants, US Airways and elsewhere, successfully gaining public attention, social and major media coverage, and responses from employers, while building global networks of thousands of peers.
One example of such efforts included a campaign that persuaded Starbucks to update its dress code and became an inspirational example of employees getting corporations to listen.