Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers
Here until poverty isn't!
Join with us as we build strong organization to support the collective efforts of the lowest-paid workers in the Northwest to gain dignity and justice for all.
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Who we are
Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers
Friends of Seasonal and Service Workers (FSSW) is an all-volunteer organization of community activists, students, seasonal workers, clergy and other concerned residents dedicated to assisting all-volunteer, independent organizing drives of farm, seasonal and service workers who are struggling to build collective solutions to their poverty conditions.
Organizations of low-income workers request assistance.
FSSW trains volunteer organizers to collectivize support for low-income worker organizations and fill their requests.
FSSW's support strengthens benefit programs that help low-income workers survive while organizing to change their living and working conditions long-term.
Illustration by Li Tie
fssw delivers
FSSW supports workers' associations
FSSW volunteers assist workers’ associations in the following ways and more.
Medical Sessions
Recruiting medical professionals to volunteer with workers’ associations’ medical benefits to provide free-of-charge preventive medical care to low-income workers.
Legal Sessions
Volunteer lay legal advocates and attorneys work with low-income workers’ associations’ legal benefits to recover unpaid wages, stop illegal evictions and other legal problems.
Benefit Advocacy
Volunteers assist low-income workers to contact utility companies to prevent water and electricity shutoffs as part of advocacy sessions conducted by associations of low-income workers.
Food Distributions
Volunteers collect, sort, package and deliver fresh and non-perishable food for emergency and supplemental distributions by associations of low-income workers.
Put practical skills to work
Join with FSSW to...
Sign up for an Organizer Training Program
Certified organizers provide on-the-job training in the basic skills needed to collectivize and mobilize concerned individuals and groups to provide aid to organizations of low-income workers fighting to end policies that perpetuate poverty and divide our communities.
Organize caravans of volunteers and resources
Join caravans to rural Oregon and Alaska to work side-by-side with farm, seasonal and service workers learning to sign up members to the organizations and build free-of-charge benefit programs that include preventive medical care, non-emergency dental care, legal advice and more.
Lead Neighborhood Food Drives
At the invitation of residents, teams of FSSW volunteers canvass neighborhoods to sign up those interested in volunteering and to collect staple food items for distribution to organizations of low-income workers.
Produce an independent newspaper
Learn the skills of writing, design, layout and printing through publishing FSSW's newspaper, Seasonal Greetings, an independent newspaper reporting on FSSW's work and the truth about struggles of low-income workers' organizations, denied a voice in the mainstream media.
Unite local businesses with low-income worker organizations
Visit local businesses to promote FSSW's support for organizations of low-income workers and invite business owners, managers and employees to get involved.
Advance campaigns led by low-income workers
Join with low-income farm, seasonal and service workers to build campaigns to survive the harsh winters of Alaska and hot summers of Oregon as well as back-to-school and holiday campaigns to narrow the gap between incomes and expenses for low-income families.
Fight for affordable energy
FSSW volunteers support farm and seasonal workers who mobilize to stop utility rate increases and the energy profiteering that comes at the expense of low-income and working communities.