By Lorelei Christie

Last week, WILL Empower brought together the five young women (including myself) who make up the program’s inaugural class of apprentices for a three-day training/development event. Lane Windham and Sheri Davis-Faulkner, the amazing women who made this program a reality, set the tone for the gathering by reminding us to bring our whole selves into the space—to not leave our hearts at the door.

Throughout the three days, we explored the history and future of the worker justice movement, focusing on the role of women. With input from some of the movement’s key thinkers and doers, we discussed the concept of Bargaining for the Common Good (BCG), a model that moves beyond the traditional scope of collective bargaining and aims to achieve wins for the community at large rather than stopping at the workers who are protected by a contract. BCG requires collaboration between unions, economic justice advocates, racial justice organizations, and other community stakeholders, so many of our discussions revolved around the intersectionality that such collaboration requires.

We got to hear from a panel of women who bravely fight for economic justice on a daily basis: Yolanda Medina deJesus (Education Director of AFSCME), Tam Goelling (Director of Civic and Community Engagement for IBEW), and my external mentor, Renata Pumarol (Deputy Director of New York Communities for Change). They, along with the many inspiring activists we met over the course of the gathering, exemplified the wide range of contributions folks can make to the worker justice movement and the very different paths that can lead people to those contributions. We also spent time reflecting on and sharing our own stories and aspirations as women who are in the early stages of our involvement in the movement.

The most moving part of the gathering for me was the Women’s Labor Leadership Networking Reception. Full disclosure: I hate networking. I have always felt uncomfortable with the transactional and inauthentic nature of the networking I’ve been exposed to. I was not looking forward to this networking event. Three hours after the event started, I found myself wondering how it could have gone by so quickly and how it could have been so fun. I had talked to and heard from dozens of women, but I didn’t feel like I had networked at all. Why? Because that room was filled with women who genuinely want to support each other—women who genuinely want a stronger worker justice movement and understand that we have to care for one another and lift each other up to achieve that. I didn’t have to whip out a networking persona; I was just myself.

The gathering was a much-needed reminder that it is okay bring your whole self into your work; in fact, it is necessary. Women are so often taught that they need to leave behind parts of themselves to fit into professional settings. The economic justice movement needs women in all their powerful complexity—partially because women currently hold the lowest-paying jobs, and are at the core of the evolving economy, but also because women can provide leadership qualities that have been muted or unappreciated for far too long in the movement and the world.

I left the gathering with a renewed commitment to fighting for economic, racial, and gender justice in my life/career and in what I hope and believe will be lifelong, supportive relationships with women who have already helped me become a better version of myself.

Lorelei Christie is an apprentice with WILL Empower, and her apprenticeship host site is Jobs to Move America in New York City. WILL Empower is an innovative program designed to identify, nurture and train a new generation of women labor leaders.