Our past work with the Fair Fare campaign for affordable transit demonstrated that we can make our voices count. Participants learned how to plan tasks, solve problems, and work as a team. They felt they were able to make a difference in their community and take pride in their work, building confidence and demonstrating initiative as they learned.

This year we continued our advocacy by supporting the $15 and Fairness Day of Action to advocate for a higher minimum wage, better working conditions, and increases in the number of paid sick and vacation days. And we supported that advocacy with practical training, inviting a community legal clinic to do a workshop for our participants about workers’ rights under the Employment Standards Act.

Our efforts have also been directed inwards. We have begun to use the lens of decent work to assess ourselves as a not-for-profit employer. In the nonprofit sector, as elsewhere, decent work encompasses elements such as competitive wages, good benefits and pensions or retirement plans, stable employment, opportunities for development and advancement, and equality and inclusivity at work. What do we do well? Where do we still need to go? By championing good working conditions, progressive social policies, and other aspects of decent work, we believe that the nonprofit sector can lead the way to healthier working environments and improved organizational effectiveness.

PTP is in the early stages of engaging with the decent work movement. The decent work campaign is a global initiative that was established by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Moving forward with other nonprofit organizations, PTP will encourage the government to make decent work a priority. As an employer, we will strive for decent work for our employees, and as an employment service provider, we will encourage our employer partners to provide decent work for our clients.