Color Compton is “An organization geared towards working with the youth to build community relationships among people of color while exploring identity, and creating art. Grounded on history, students will be introduced to concepts and history to engage in dialogue and use art mediums to develop their own narratives through collective engagement. All students will be able to gain leadership skills and play a critical role in community activism”

They hope to "aim to empower all students in the Compton community by sharing the histories of people of color and introducing art as a form of communication"

Community Partners include: GirlSpace International, Compton G.IRLS Club , and The Variety Group.

Please give a warm welcome to Abigail Lopez-Byrd, founder and executive director of Color Compton. Abigail is a Compton native and her vision was to cultivate a creative space for Compton youth and community to have a space where they could have conversations about art, history, identity and community. She herself recalls her first experience with the arts (photography) in high school and how that allowed her to look at life through an artistic lense. She recalls having to qualify for this extracurricular class and how they would meet after school, making it inaccessible for all students. With Color Compton, Abigail hopes to expose youth to the power of communication and knowledge through art. Alongside unlocking a creative outlet which allows youth to explore their self identity and how they see themselves in and apart of a collective community.

Like many of the organizations we have today, Color Compton has shifted to accommodate on a remote platform due to COVID-19. Color Compton and their sister organizations have moved to host conferences online as well as limited in person events. For example, Paint Night & Wine Tasting was hosted over the summer. Tickets were limited at an outside venue for social distancing and masks were required. Color Compton has been working to adapt to the social distancing while still providing for its community. Color Compton has also partnered with their sister organizations to raise funds for families who have been affected by the global pandemic. Community is one of the organizations pillars, so it was especially important for them to show up for their community and provide mutual aid to alleviate some financial burden many people are having to face. Color Compton is also providing limited access to office space to provide to the community because they recognize that one of the challenges brought by the global pandemic is people not having a quiet space to do their work.

Firstly, labour unions are organizations intended to represent collective identities and interests of workers in negotiations with employers over common job concepts like wages, hours and working conditions. The image below explores some for the collective identities of workers, or reasons why they would form a union:

Moving on, we all know that everything has positives and negatives and I would like to discuss a little bit about Unions. In the past, employees working conditions were quite harsh; working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, no holidays, no pay raises, that is if you wanted to continue with the job. However, the power of unions changed all these factors and through the use of labour unions - along with a reasonable system of regulations - workers were able to have a voice. On the other hand, unions may not always understand the business side which is needed to be known to create a levelled playing field between employees and managers. 

Personally, although I do not work yet, I still believe that labour unions should be allowed in society as they give a chance for workers to express their ideas and perspectives of personal matters like wages or hours off. After some further research into this topic I found some details about a proposed labour code that changes some of the health and safety laws.

The proposed legislation would change the health and safety laws that govern the right of workers to refuse unsafe work. Labour unions are particularly concerned with the one of the specific changes. It would give the minister of labour the power to determine (without investigation) whether refusal of work is trivial, senseless or vexatious. This finding could mean an employee is disciplined or even fired. Under the current legislation, if an employee and employer disagree on whether something is safe or not, an investigation by a health and safety officer is required. 

Labour unions support the idea of collective identities, addressing common issues with employees and employers by utilizing collective bargaining; a process of how negotiations of conditions of employment can be conducted. Throughout history, these collective identity groups have brought about change. When talking about employment we refer to the collective social identity that a group shares when interacting with individuals of society. The mutual reinforcement between identity and goals helps to explain the transformative power that collective identity had produced. Without it, our workers may not have a chance to express their thoughts and our community may return to one who does not support the voice of workers and their values. 

Take a look at this image below too!