Senior Policy Analyst or Staff Attorney, Work Structures

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) seeks a dynamic, experienced, and skilled person to join our Work Structures team as a Senior Policy Analyst or Senior Staff Attorney to advance NELP’s programs and policy campaigns. You will join a team of experts who are working with partners to (1) combat anti-worker corporate labor contracting practices, like the misuse of temporary help and staffing agencies and the misclassification of employees as independent contractors, which erode employer accountability, job quality, and worker power, and (2) devise and advance pro-worker policies that ensure employer accountability, expand workers’ access to rights, and build worker power and fundamental rights. This is an extraordinary opportunity to leverage your talent and join a team that ensures progressive and impactful worker-driven policies are at the forefront of current and future worker rights in the U.S. labor market.

Who We Are

Founded in 1969, the nonprofit National Employment Law Project (NELP) is a leading advocacy organization with the mission to build a just and inclusive economy where all workers have expansive rights and thrive in good jobs. Together with local, state, and national partners, NELP advances its mission through transformative legal and policy solutions, research, capacity building, and communications. Our victories over the last decade have impacted the lives of an estimated 100 million workers and their families. We lead and collaborate in fights for higher pay and just benefits, secure and safe jobs, and support at each stage in a worker’s life. We build worker power and we challenge rules that allow corporate harm and undue power. We are transforming precarious work by raising the floor so that every job is a good job and everyone who wants a job can have one. Together over the next decade, we will build Black, immigrant worker power and advance transformative solutions to achieve racial and economic justice. For more information, read our annual reports and explore our website: www.nelp.org

NELP has a team of 45 staff people based across offices in New York City, Washington D.C., and Berkeley, CA, with a 12-person Board of Directors, an annual budget of $14M, and hundreds of partners in the field with whom we work to further our mission.

What You Will Do

You may be based in any of NELP’s three office locations and will report to the Director of Work Structures. You will work in conjunction with NELP’s staff of lawyers, policy experts, researchers, and strategic communications experts.  Your work will be aimed at reversing the trend towards precarious subcontracted work arrangements that are key drivers of eroding labor standards, rising income and wealth inequality, persistent structural racism and occupational segregation, and the shifting of power away from workers and toward corporations. This includes issues such as the increase in work arrangements using subcontracting and temp work, the ongoing challenge of worker misclassification, and the growing prevalence of app-based work. Although the position does not require deep content expertise, you will be skilled at supporting multi-faceted efforts leveraging legal and policy expertise, strategic communications, and an extensive network to ensure partners and stakeholders have legal, policy, and strategic support for campaigns at the federal level and across the country. You will work with our experts to develop deeper knowledge of precarious work to engage in policy advocacy including cultivating partnerships with worker-led groups centering racial equity and leveraging strategic communications.

You will be responsible for the following:
 

• Sharpening the vision of our work structures strategic priorities in collaboration with our team.
• Federal, state, and local advocacy in policy priority areas by engaging key constituencies, allied organizations, and policymakers.
• Providing technical assistance, legal, policy, and strategic support to state partners and for campaigns across the country, including drafting model legislation, policy briefs, and if appropriate, legal analyses, and to serve as a national resource.
• Drafting or providing research supporting amicus briefs and strategic litigation related to issues of precarious work.
• Representing NELP in advocacy coalitions, public forums, legislative and agency hearings, and in the media.
• Drafting reports, op-eds, blogs, and educational materials, and engaging in strategic communications.
• Supporting a workplace culture where all team members grow and develop professionally.
• Actively contributing to NELP’s work in becoming an anti-racist organization that reflects and embodies internally the values of dignity, justice, equity, and inclusion.

Who You Are

• You have seven+ years’ advocacy experience in policy, legal, research, or organizing work to advance economic and/or racial justice. Experience addressing job quality and worker power issues related to subcontracted work is a plus.
• You have experience in directly or indirectly organizing workers, and in building successful and strategic worker-centered campaigns.
• You have a JD, PhD, or Master’s degree in a relevant field, or equivalent demonstrable expertise.
• You are a relationship-builder. You have strong interpersonal skills, enjoy connecting individuals, and have a track record of developing and maintaining alliances.
• You have a proven track record of working in coalition with groups, such as community-based organizations, legal, labor, and worker centers.
• You have strong project management skills. You are a strategic and clear-headed thinker and doer, have experience managing multiple projects, overseeing, and tracking details, and a track record of achieving timely results.
• You have strong racial equity competencies and center your role in an analysis and understanding of how race and power shape systems in our society and culture and you are continuously learning, reflecting, and growing; you foster trust and transparency across lines of difference by listening deeply, and offer direct, honest feedback with compassion and clarity of purpose. 
• You are skilled at conducting high-quality and thorough policy research and analysis.
• You are a skilled oral and written communicator, with a demonstrated ability to create compelling and digestible work products such as reports, op-eds, and/or issue briefs; and are skilled in presenting, testifying, and/or engaging with the media.
• You are self-aware, curious, and respectful with strong interpersonal skills fostering a sense of purpose and community and have high standards for holding yourself and others accountable.
• You operate with a commitment to excellence, integrity, diplomacy, and camaraderie.

Start Date, Location, Compensation and Benefits:  In response to the pandemic, all staff are currently working remotely and are not traveling. When conditions are amenable, the position will require some travel. Candidates must be able to work from one of our three offices (Berkeley, New York City, or Washington D.C.) at the point that we return to working in the office. The start date will be as soon as possible. This position is in NELP’s bargaining unit, represented by National Organization of Legal Service Workers, UAW Local 2320. Classification and compensation for NELP bargaining unit positions is commensurate with relevant experience and education and based on NELP’s collectively bargained scales. Based on our union scale, the salary range for a senior staff attorney with a JD or a senior policy analyst with a PhD and seven years’ relevant experience is $87,700-$98,000, depending upon education attainment. Compensation also includes an excellent comprehensive benefits package, including full-coverage of family health insurance, a medical reimbursement plan, generous vacation and sick leave, contribution from employer to a retirement plan, and student loan repayment assistance for qualifying participants.

To apply: Through our online database, submit a cover letter, resume, writing sample and three references to http://bit.ly/WorkWithNelp, choosing the “Work Structures Senior Policy Analyst or Staff Attorney” option under position. If you have questions regarding this announcement, please forward those to nelp@nelp.org, noting “Work Structures Senior Policy Analyst or Staff Attorney” in the subject line. No phone calls or other email inquiries please. We will consider applications on a rolling basis. Applications due by September 20, 2021.

NELP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and an equal opportunity, fair chance, affirmative action employer, committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce.  All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, military status, prior record of arrest or conviction, citizenship status, current employment status, or caregiver status.