Strategic Organizing Center

Washington, DC

This is the 2023 fellowship description for this mentor organization. This fellowship position has been filled.

Organizational Description
The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC) is a dynamic coalition of North America’s most progressive labor unions: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the United Farm Workers (UFW), collectively representing over 3 million working people in the United States and Canada across a wide range of sectors, including retail, manufacturing, healthcare, public service, banking and transportation. SOC partners with its affiliate unions and other organizations to join with workers in taking on corporate power in an intensive, strategic and transofrmational way. We are a leading force helping workers gain social, racial and economic justice in our country today. Our ongoing campaigns to confront corporate power include the Fight for $15, winning raises for fast food and other low-wage workers across the country; Code-CWA, partnering with CWA to support ground-breaking organizing by Apple, Alphabet  and video game tech workers; assisting the historic wave of worker organizing at Starbuck's; and Investigate Amazon, calling for scrutiny of anticompetitive practices in ecommerce, logistics, and related industries.

Job Announcement
SOC is hiring two law students for ten-week summer clerkships in its legal department. SOC’s legal department develops and executes legal strategies and tactics for comprehensive corporate reform. The legal department's work extends beyond the practice of traditional labor law and worker representation. It includes strategic research; shareholder activism; partnering with allies outside the traditional labor movement; and regulatory and state- and federal-level advocacy in the areas of vital and cutting-edge worker issues such as misclassification, antitrust, safety and health, and corporate surveillance among others.

Summer law clerks will perform legal research and writing on a variety of issues, including those arising under federal and state antitrust, civil rights, employment, and worker safety statutes, and local workplace regulations. Summer clerks may also assist with various legislative, regulatory and public policy matters. We have an active education and networking program for summer clerks. Successful applicants will possess very good research, writing and oral communication skills, and a demonstrated commitment to progressive movements, whether within or outside of the labor movement. Experience in investigative journalism, organizing, and/or strategic research is a plus.

SOC actively seeks diversity in its law clerk program, and especially encourages applicants from groups traditionally underrepresented in the legal profession and/or the mainstream labor movement.

Clerks will be paid $22/hour, plus expenses, for a ten-week clerkship. SOC anticipates that clerks will work out of the organization’s office in Washington, D.C.

Address cover letter to:

Marka Peterson
Legal Director and Associate General Counsel
Strategic Organizing Center
1900 L Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20036

www.changetowin.org