Issue(s): Jobs
Urban Peace Movement worked as part of the Revive Oakland Coalition’s Campaign for Quality Jobs with the redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base (the coalition is led by EBASE, and UPM is a member of the coalition’s Steering Committee). As background, in summer 2012, our coalition won a landmark Community Jobs Agreement that governs the City of Oakland’s half of the redevelopment project. The Agreement includes local hire, living wage, protections against discrimination for formerly incarcerated job applicants, and the creation of a community based job center. UPM’s youth testified numerous times before City Council about the need for quality jobs and they organized a youth rally, attended by over 300 young people. UPM’s Executive Director served as Chief Spokesperson in negotiations with the City and the developers.
This past year we turned our focus to the Port of Oakland’s portion of the former army base. We are happy to announce that after a 20-month campaign, we just signed off on a jobs agreement with the Port and developers which includes an even stronger community benefits that we won on the City-side of the development and that put in place one of the strongest Ban the Box policies in the country! The Ban the Box provision will help to project formerly incarcerated job seekers from discrimination in the hiring process so that they have a fair chance to compete for employment!!