Year in Review, By the Numbers

Patients Over Profits

As a core partner in the Rescue Our Medical Care Coalition, Working Partnerships USA mobilized patients, community, and medical professionals to push back against corporate influence that prioritized profits over people, specifically for affordable and quality healthcare services for our community, in our community. We are holding corporate healthcare giant HCA Healthcare and local government accountable, securing a precedent-setting Community Advisory Committee and $3 million to invest in healthcare services for San José’s most vulnerable people.

Resilient Regional Economies

We organized 400 stakeholders in the South Bay / Peninsula High Road Roundtable to commit to business-government-nonprofit partnerships that will provide thousands of South Bay workers in the South Bay’s most underserved and marginalized communities with training and placement in good, skilled jobs with livable wages across multiple sectors, including manufacturing, caregiving, the arts, and small business ownership.

Building a Strong Grassroots Movement

We engaged over 10,000 community members, strengthening our collective voice and impact in shaping decisions on critical issues facing our communities including health care, on the job safety, wages, the shortage of affordable housing and homelessness. We reach and connect with workers and residents, one to one to listen carefully, build lasting relationships, and strengthen each individual’s voice and leadership within our communities. We build a strong grassroots movement, ensuring that individuals in our communities have the power to drive the change they deserve, generation after generation.

Growing New Leaders

This summer, we welcomed our first cohort of amazing Bill Leininger Summer Justice Interns! During this 8-week internship, our 8 Leininger Interns build organizing and project management skills through hands-on projects and tailored placements, they refine their community organizer skills. All interns deepened their knowledge of Santa Clara County’s communities and priorities, and are ready to champion community-centered campaigns and drive long-term political change!

Just Economy

We’re building power for workers and our communities that challenges the status quo, creates good jobs for all, provides better wages, maintains safer workplaces, and enables more equitable opportunities for all. We’re changing the rules of the economy to ensure fair wages, family-supporting careers, and access to opportunity for those who have been excluded—so everyone can share in the prosperity they’ve helped create.

The South Bay/Peninsula High Road Roundtable united regional partners to advance collaborative economic development. By fostering cross-sector dialogue and strategic partnerships, we’re building a more resilient and equitable economy. This year, we brought together stakeholders, facilitated workgroup meetings focused on economic inclusion, catalyzed cross-sector partnerships, and engaged philanthropic program officers in a funders’ briefing to support strategic alignment and transparency.

Trades Orientation Program

75 graduates ready for union careers | 98 new participants

Since its inception in 2015, TOP has equipped over 675 graduates with the skills, support, and certifications needed to build fulfilling careers in the construction trades. This year, we built on that foundation with new partnerships, expanded resources, and a deeper commitment to equity. Notably, we secured a Community Workforce Agreement with Mountain View, ensuring equitable hiring opportunities, and partnered with Plumbers Local 393 and IBEW Local 332 to strengthen apprenticeship pathways and enhance job readiness.

Fair Workplace Collaborative

4,600+ workers engaged | 450+ businesses reached | 300+ worker trainings

The Fair Workplace Collaborative (FWC) is a coalition of dedicated community members, organizations, labor attorneys, and small business leaders committed to combating wage theft and labor violations by connecting with the community, providing free legal aid, hosting worker and business employment/labor trainings, and legal clinics. This year, we grew our Fair Workplace Collaborative team, ramped up outreach and brought workers, businesses, and communities together to champion labor rights, provide critical resources, and amplify worker voices in the fight for dignity and equity in the workplace.

Future of Workers

We’re committed to an inclusive and equitable future of work where workers from Black and Indigenous communities, and other communities of color and their communities thrive.

We stood shoulder-to-shoulder with fast food workers, taking on the powerful fast food industry lobby to fight for fair wages, safer working conditions, and dignity on the job. Through coalition building, strikes, media advocacy, and research, we amplified worker voices. We demanded the passage of a Fast Food Fair Work Ordinance which will enable cities in Santa Clara County to solve rampant labor law violations by providing training to workers so they know how they can enforce their legal rights, receive the unpaid wages they’re due, and obtain never-before-received paid time off to better address their needs and sustain their families.

Just Cities

We’re working towards more equitable cities in which there’s a home for every family, safe and thriving neighborhoods, and accessible transportation that meets all residents’ needs.

We strengthened our housing justice movement through strategic coalition-building and grassroots organizing across the Bay Area. Partnering with a diverse network of organizations, we advanced affordable housing advocacy in Santa Clara County, secured City Council commitments to explore tenant protections like tracking algorithmic rent-setting by corporate landlords and Just Cause provisions. We also connected over 800 community members to long-term efforts for housing justice.

Through our work with the Berryessa Flea Market Vendors Association (BFVA), we supported flea market vendors through the creation of the Flea Market Advisory Board with the City of San José, ensuring their input on the future market and transition fund use. We partnered with the City on studies on the market’s economic and cultural impact, and operations and relocation sites. BFVA continues advocating for the market’s relocation and raising awareness through social media campaigns highlighting vendors and their businesses.

Care for All

Everyone deserves access to high quality, compassionate care across their lives. We’re working towards a future of expanded access to crucial care for all people, dignity for families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities, and improved labor standards for care workers.

Brought together a diverse coalition of local organizations, health advocates, medical professionals and community members to take on corporate healthcare in a powerful 3-month advocacy campaign that blocked the downgrading of trauma, stroke and STEMI services at Regional Medical Center in East San José. The result wasn’t just preserving these critical services but also securing Santa Clara County’s purchase of the hospital—weakening corporate healthcare’s grip on our public health system. Not stopping at that, the Rescue Our Medical Care Coalition also secured the first-ever Community Advisory Committee for an HCA Healthcare facility and contribution to local housing needs — and will continue fighting for health equity in Santa Clara County.

Care Workers Council

Organized 37 care workers

Through the Care Workers Council, we united care workers for leadership workshops and advocacy efforts, including a Workers Roundtable where elected officials—from school boards to the State Assembly—listened directly to their experiences. The council is also working to expand community college courses to better prepare care workers to meet emerging needs, such as supporting aging adults with dementia, Alzheimer’s, and special needs children.

Build the Future

12 South Bay cities commit to Childcare for All

As co-organizers of the Build the Future coalition, we are shifting the conversation about childcare in the South Bay and building a foundation to provide affordable and quality childcare for all Santa Clara County families. San José, Santa Clara, Saratoga, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Morgan Hill, Milpitas, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Campbell, Sunnyvale,and Gilroy have already committed to addressing the childcare crises and working with Build the Future to ensure that childcare is a region-wide priority.

Vibrant Democracy

From redistricting to continued civic engagement of low propensity voters, we’re taking bold steps to nurture a more representative democracy for all residents in our region — where “pay to play” politics is a thing of the past and our government is responsive to the people.

Our program strategically reached low-propensity Latino voters in Santa Clara County, engaging communities often overlooked by traditional outreach. We built a dynamic team of canvassers and volunteers to amplify voices typically marginalized in the electoral process.

Fair Elections San José

Launched 15-organization coalition for election reform | Landmark ordinance curbing corporate influence

We spearheaded efforts to ensure fairer and more inclusive elections in San José. This year, we brought together a coalition of organizations to push for comprehensive campaign finance reform, including launching a voucher program. Our efforts included publishing an impactful Op-Ed authored by coalition member Gabriel Manrique, highlighting the urgent need for reform to ensure a more inclusive and representative democracy.

Additionally, after a three-year campaign led by Working Partnerships USA, San José adopted a groundbreaking ordinance during the 2024 election cycle, which blocked major real estate investment trusts from influencing local races—curbing corporate power and prioritizing the voices of residents over special interests.