Throughout 2023, the Workers Circle took strong action to defend democracy, galvanizing our membership, youth and college program participants, and the broader public to take direct action to challenge attacks on our rights, and to become lifelong agents for social change.

Below is a sample of some of our accomplishments during the year:

Our programs are successfully building a grassroots national movement advocating for social justice.

• In 2023, our new initiative, Democracy Circles, gained tremendous momentum. Through this innovative project, small groups of people convene regularly to discuss pressing challenges facing democracy, and plan responses to these obstacles. More than 36 Democracy Circles around the country have emerged with more being formed every month.

• Today, a national grassroots network of Democracy Circles has developed, with members who are deeply engaged in their communities. Moreover, our Democracy Circle model has become a successful tool for grassroots mobilization and a model for replication by other progressive organizations. Democracy Circles have attracted the attention of several national organizations including the Center for Common Ground which is now rolling out our Democracy Circles program to their hundreds of thousands of members. The Democracy Circle model has become a successful tool for grassroots mobilization and a model for replication by other progressive organizations.

• The Workers Circle also played a part in the national campaign to protect farmworkers rights. We joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in advocacy and protest actions in New York and in other states to direct attention to the fast food giant Wendy's refusal to join the Fair Food Program. This year, four years after its introduction, the New York City Council overwhelmingly adopted Resolution 131, calling on Wendy’s and Trian Partners to sign onto the Fair Food Program. We were gratified that our advocacy had contributed toward securing the long awaited passage of the Resolution.

We are a strong Jewish voice, building coalitions and developing new partnerships with progressive organizations.

• The Workers Circle participated in several broad coalitions that collectively advocated for immigrant rights, election integrity, and labor rights. We partnered with a wide array of organizations including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the League of Women Voters, Declaration for American Democracy, the National Council of Jewish Women, Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition, Vote Coalition, and others to sponsor rallies, sign petitions, and provide advocacy training. During the year, our weekly voting rights phone banks with the Center for Common Ground, resulted in our activists making 1,117 calls to Black voters for the Virginia primary.

• Recently, our three-year history of joint mobilization with Black Voters Matter, a leading national organization working to increase power in predominantly Black communities, led to our forming a groundbreaking Black and Jewish Partnership for Democracy. Through this partnership, we will work together to mobilize and empower people across the US to successfully register and vote. Our national program of joint action will enable us to assist communities of color in vote-suppressed areas with the tools to surmount barriers to voting, identify common key issues in Black and Jewish communities, and develop programs to organize our communities around shared goals. Additionally in these fraught times, we will be modeling a successful partnership and related coalition of Black and Jewish communities working together around shared values and interests. It is our goal to include discussions of racism and antisemitism within our work moving forward.