June 4, 2025, Washington, D.C. – Last July, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) voluntarily recognized CLASP Workers United, a new employee union represented by Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), Local 2. On May 23, 2025, CLASP Workers United and CLASP ratified their first-ever collective bargaining agreement, which was effective immediately and covers the next 24 months.

The agreement addressed the bargaining unit’s rights and protections, hiring processes, pay scale, leave policy, and workplace disputes, among other provisions.

“With this contract, our goal was to set a strong foundation for the negotiating team that will come to the table two years from now. We absolutely achieved that goal,” said Jesse Fairbanks, CLASP Workers United’s President, “We secured several systemic changes in this contract that can be built upon by future members of our union.”

“I am proud of management and staff for coming together on a collaboratively developed agreement rooted in mutual respect and shared values. It embodies our values, codifies fair labor and compensation practices, reinforces clear promotion pathways, and embraces equity and transparency,” said Wendy Chun-Hoon, CLASP’s new president and executive director. “This agreement strengthens both our internal culture and external impact.”

In particular, the agreement bolsters compensation and workplace practices by:

• Establishing clear salary bands with defined step increases for CLASP’s lowest-paid workers,
• Providing cost-of-living adjustments retroactive to January 2025 and annually every year thereafter,
• Guaranteeing severance pay and other protections during layoffs,
• Formalizing flexible schedules, hybrid, and remote work policies,
• Establishing a grievance process, and
• Aligning promotions with structured performance evaluation.

“We are pleased to welcome the employees at CLASP into the OPEIU Local 2 family. Among other things, I was impressed with the bargaining team’s unwavering dedication to ensuring that the lowest-paid employees were elevated to a living wage. This speaks highly of their commitment to the principles of the labor movement as well as the principles that brought them to CLASP employment,” said Sarah Levesque, Secretary-Treasurer, OPEIU, Local 2.

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The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is a national, nonpartisan, anti-poverty organization advancing policy solutions for people with low incomes. Because poverty in America is inextricably tied to systemic racism, CLASP focuses its policy and advocacy efforts for economic and racial justice on addressing systemic racism as the primary cause of poverty for communities of color.

CLASP Workers United (CWU) unionized in 2024 as a member of OPEIU Local 2. Our union aims to ensure a balance of institutional power between CLASP management and its workers through increased transparency and shared decision-making. We make space for workers at CLASP to step into their people power and demand organizational change.