About Clean Water Guild

MISSION STATEMENT

We, the workers of Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund, have formed the Clean Water Guild to put the power back in the hands of the workers. Protecting our environment starts with fostering an ecosystem of sustainable working conditions and a culture of progress in both what we strive for and how we work. We aim not just to improve our working conditions and engage in the decision-making process, but to make our organization more effective by connecting with each other and empowering all fellow workers nationwide. As a union, founded on transparency, collaboration, and democracy, we will have the power and resilience to meet the moment. We are proud to become union siblings as a unit of the NewsGuild-CWA.

UNION BACKGROUND

Clean Water Action was built on the ethos that collective action is the most effective means of producing social change. As the workers of Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund, we commit ourselves to the arduous task of turning these ideals into a reality and build on the work of decades of organizers who labored before us. On the basis of these values, a supermajority of us have come together to ensure that the spaces in which we fight for environmental justice are governed by transparent rules and policies. We are fighting for a democratic workplace in which organizing comes first and workers have a say over both the direction and content of their work.

As the workers of Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund, we dedicate the majority of our waking hours to fighting against powerful, multinational corporations and the intersecting systems of oppression that threaten our health, wellbeing, and our environment. Yet, we are structurally impacted by some of the same toxic forces we fight against. Our policies are applied on an ad-hoc basis, the structure of the organization is opaque and fragmented, our grassroots organizers have little agency over their work, and the organization lacks a transparent balance between fundraising and organizing.

At a time when our democracy is under siege, it is imperative that our workplace is radically transformed into a bastion of democracy, transparency, and accountability.

By organizing the organizers, Clean Water Action shall evolve into a fighting, bottom-up, progressive organization that will empower the will of our members and the expertise of our staff to produce substantive change.