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The Boston Workers’ Alliance (BWA) is a five-year-old member-led organization of unemployed and underemployed people combating joblessness in the city’s poorest communities. It grew out of roundtable educational forums convened by veteran leaders who advised the city council representative from a marginalized district. More than 300 people attended the discussions.
A four-month-long listening project among the predominantly African American population of the district identified unemployment and discrimination against job applicants with criminal records as the district’s primary concerns. Aaron Tanaka, BWA’s executive director, says most ex-offenders were convicted of non-violent crimes, many of them drug-related. In Massachusetts, a felony remains on a person’s criminal record for 15 years after the completion of probation or parole, and a misdemeanor stays for 10 years. This is known as the look-back period.
The 80 initial members of BWA committed themselves to getting the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) laws changed, to creating a temporary employment agency for people with criminal records, and to helping members start their own businesses. They worked together to share their concerns with policy makers and candidates for elected office.
After one of the people who promised reform of CORI laws during the campaign was elected governor, BWA organized a group of 1,500 people to march peacefully from their Roxbury neighborhood to the statehouse in Boston to remind the new governor of his pledge. Aaron says it was the state’s largest mobilization of former prisoners in recent history.
Finally, BWA’s efforts met with success. The city of Boston removed the question about past offenses from its municipal job application in 2005 and ordered its vendors to do the same. Governor Patrick Duval signed an executive order reducing the look-back period to 10 years for a felony and 5 years for a misdemeanor. Homicide and sex offenses are excluded.
BWA supports state legislation to codify the executive order. “Employers can still check criminal records,” says Aaron, “but they can’t use the question to weed out people up front without considering their resumes and references. Employers have the discretion to balance the age of the record and the seriousness and relevance of the offense to the job they’re filling.”
He describes a BWA founding member who worked at a call center and who was given increasing levels of responsibility. She was offered a promotion to the company’s corporate headquarters, but a check of her criminal record showed a long-ago conviction. “She was demoted. Her hours were changed and she was forced out,” he says. “She felt isolated and ashamed.”
The company’s loss was BWA’s gain, Aaron says, because the unemployed worker grew as a leader and became an advocate for people like herself. She was hired as an organizer for a large union and is now on the verge of completing her bachelor’s degree.
BWA’s temporary employment agency, named the Boston Staffing Alliance, is poised to open after four years of careful planning. Weeks before its official launch, 10 workers were hired for an assignment that paid 10 dollars an hour.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) helped BWA turn its great idea into an operable agency that will help former offenders develop a work history and showcase themselves to potential employers. Active BWA members are given preference for job placements.
“CCHD is our primary funding partner in this process,” says Aaron. “We appreciate their unique willingness to invest in a population that is broadly neglected. CCHD is making a crucial opportunity for people to earn a decent wage and lift themselves out of poverty.”