Job: Labour Behind the Label – Community Organiser and Engagement Lead
Salary:
£38,445 FTE – 3 days/week, 21 hours £23,067 (hours can be flexible but will regularly include weekend and evening work) + 6% employer and 4% employee pension contribution.
We are a workers’ cooperative which means we are dedicated to equality reflected by our equal pay policy across the team. Holiday is calculated at 33 days FTE (including bank holidays).
Duration:
12-month contract starting ASAP (preferably October 2025); potential for extension will be reviewed at 9 months subject to funding and organisational strategy
Location:
Based in Leicester area (home/field-based)
Labour Behind the Label (LBL) supports garment workers’ efforts worldwide to improve their working conditions, wages, and ensure their basic rights are respected. We do this through lobbying retailers, brands and political leaders; raising public awareness; promoting campaign action; and exploring legal possibilities for improving conditions. For more information please see www.labourbehindthelabel.org
The Role:
Labour Behind the Label is recruiting a community organiser and engagement lead. We have worked on campaigns for garment workers rights and experiences in Leicester since the pandemic. We want to ensure the long-term legacy of that work is rooted in community power and we need an organiser who can help bring local people together to work on building their own solutions as a community. The voice of garment workers is central to all our projects, and our work amplifies the demands of workers within the industry. We want to address the continued lack of worker self-organising by approaching the work from a community organising model. In Leicester, we want to be guided by strong grassroots efforts by and for local people, and that includes garment workers.
The community organiser will work along two main activity strands: delivering on existing community engagement project work, and community organising.
The first area of responsibility is delivering on existing project work around garment workers’ experiences of reporting irregularities at work. This will include:
- Building a network of garment workers willing to participate in surveys, consultations and focus groups to discuss their experiences and concerns of their work conditions. (A minimum of 40 participants, 3 focus groups, 2 surveys)
- Supporting the network of garment workers to engage with decision makers to influence policy making and ensuring existing and future regulations are worker-focused. (A minimum of 2 meetings with local MPs, 1 roundtable with councillors, 1 parliamentary event, 2 lobbying meetings with relevant ministers) with support from wider LBL team
- Support the Policy Lead in highlighting the outcomes of the worker engagement sessions for a policy recommendations report and additional materials if needed.
- Support with data gathering and research into the current state of the industry and workers’ needs. – Collaborate with other community organisations on the ground and participate in joint initiatives where relevant.
- The second area of responsibility is community organising, for which training will be provided. Applying a defined model for community organising this will include:
- Taking part in door-knocking sessions to identify community members willing to join a community union/identify community members with ties to the garment industry (A minimum of 2 sessions a week)
- Organising community meetings to strategise with members who attend in identifying local issues to tackle as a group – Support the group in organising at least 2 community campaigns
- Facilitate others in organising and taking part in door-knocking
- Follow up with community members with ties to the garment industry about gathering insights and connecting them with each other
- Person Specification:
- Experience of standing up for what is right – this does not have to be in a professional context.
- Good level of spoken and ideally written Punjabi/Gujarati/other community language widely spoken in Leicester
- Enthusiasm about proactively engaging with people via door-knocking, street stalls or other outreach methods.
- A good understanding of worker’s rights and a willingness to learn about the key challenges for workers in garment factories.
- The ability to build strong community links and relationships, based on integrity and trust.
- Resilience to handle setbacks and creativity about alternative strategies.
- Excellent understanding of confidentiality and safeguarding principles, in order to engage safely and sensitively with vulnerable workers.
- Able to participate in online meetings with the Labour Behind the Label team.
Our biggest requirement for this role is enthusiasm about reaching out to local people in a language they will understand and a genuine interest in building community power. If you are a confident communicator that is persuasive and creative and can handle rejection, difficult group dynamics or conflicting priorities, we’d love to hear from you, even if you don’t feel you fully meet our specification.
We recognise that there are several communities under-represented in our team at present, including but not limited to, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, trans and non-binary people and people with disabilities. As a course of positive action to improve representation in our team, we actively encourage applications from these under-represented groups. To apply: Please send an up-to-date CV, as well as a supporting statement (no more than 2 pages of A4) telling us how you meet the eight points in the Person Specification by 19th October 2025.