Join as an ESWA Member Today
Membership >
IN UNITY THERE IS STRENGTH
Membership is open to anyone who is, has been, or in the future may be employed in service work. We understand that in order to thrive, we have to unite and cannot leave any worker behind. Many ESWA members work as domestic and maintenance workers, food service and retail workers, nurses aides and hotel workers, warehouse and food processing workers, and other occupations. ESWA members also include workers who are between jobs, retired or disabled. Join ESWA as we build collective solutions to the poverty conditions impacting tens of thousands of workers in the South Jersey area.
UNITED WE WILL WIN!
¡UNIDOS VENCEREMOS!
UNITED WE WILL WIN! ¡UNIDOS VENCEREMOS!
ESWA PROVIDES WORKERS A CHANCE TO
SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
NO OTHER INTEREST SAVE THAT
OF THE WORKERS THEMSELVES
IS SERVED
Join as a Member
Membership is open to anyone who is, has been, or in the future may be employed in service work or other types of low-paid work — domestic work, temporary work or work done as an independent contractor.
Help Run the
Self-help Membership Benefit Program
Members are eligible to participate in a free-of-charge Benefit Program, designed by members for members. As a self-help organization, members participate in the building, functioning and oversight of the Benefit Program.
Membership By the Numbers
30k
Members signed
100s
Ways to participate
11
Benefits available
Host a Housemeeting
Interested members host membership housemeetings in their homes or yards and invite newly signed members and other neighbors, family and friends to learn about ESWA.
Expand the South Jersey Workers Benefit Council
The South Jersey Workers Benefit Council (WBC) is a body of members who take on leadership roles in the organization. Members meet to coordinate the actions ESWA will take toward problems and needs expressed by the Council members and how the Benefit Program will grow in the interests of working people in South Jersey.
Illustration by Janice Maupin
Become a Delegate
As part of the WBC, members can take on a role as a delegate to bring the concerns of other members working in the same industry, worksite or living in the same neighborhood to the WBC meetings. It could be cuts in wages and benefits where you work, the forced participation of parents in a workfare program, cuts in SSI or Medicaid. You don’t have to know what to do about the problem — that comes out of the discussion. Delegates take part in carrying out the plan that is worked out during the discussion of the meeting, and learn organizing skills through on-the-job training.
“Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voices proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.”
During a convention held by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1935 in Atlantic City, Lewis dramatically called for a new organization, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) whose goal was to reach the millions of unorganized, unskilled workers across the country.