Brooklyn Workforce Innovations

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations’ Mission

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations helps jobless and working poor New Yorkers establish careers in sectors that offer good wages and opportunities for advancement.BWI was founded January 1, 2000 and is an affiliate of Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc., a South Brooklyn community development corporation. BWI’s mission is to empower low- and moderate-income people by creating living-wage employment opportunities and access to career paths. We seek to develop programs that counter prevailing market inequalities (especially those based on race or gender) and contribute to a broader movement for economic justice.

Currently BWI helps poor New Yorkers start careers in commercial driving, telecommunications cable installation, TV and film production, and skilled woodworking. BWI also trains public housing residents for jobs at New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties, and we also operate a job readiness and driver’s license access program for women. BWI recently launched a physical and programmatic expansion at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as well. There, in partnership with other nonprofit job training and adult education providers, BWI will leverage its considerable workforce development experience and match training resources with rapidly-emerging job opportunities at the expanding commercial and industrial complex.

Often, the best way to understand BWI’s work is hearing about it directly from the people we serve. Watch the Brooklyn Workforce Innovations PSA to learn more.

“Made in NY” PA Training Program Information Sessions

No latecomers will be admitted. Prior to attending an info session, call our automated system at 718-237-2017×145 for updates and cancellations, and review ALL the requirement listed on our program page. Please bring your driver’s license (if you have one) and résumé. No RSVP needed. Applications are accepted on a first-come first-serve basis, apply ASAP to guarantee consideration.

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations
621 Degraw Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Phone: 718-237-2017
Fax: 718-237-5366

Call Mondays 1pm-5pm at the BWI Main Office

A letter from International Cinematographers Guild President John Lindley and 13 other top cinematographers was sent to Hollywood studios urging them to reduce excessively long workday hours on film sets as they resumed talks with IATSE on Tuesday on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Along with Lindley, the letter was signed by four Oscar-winning cinematographers, including Roger A. Deakins (“1917,” “Blade Runner 2049”), Emmanuel Lubezki (“The Revenant”), Erik Messerschmidt (“Mank”), and John Toll (“Braveheart”).

Read the full article on TheWrap by clicking here.

PITTSFIELD — Get Diane Pearlman talking about visual effects and she will provide several stories about cutting-edge techniques that were created in the Berkshires for many well-known movies.

For six years in the 1990s, Pearlman served as executive producer and general manager of Mass.Illusion, a visual effects movie studio that had an office in Lenox. Two movies that Mass.Illusion worked on in the Berkshires, “What Dreams May Come” and “The Matrix,” received Academy Awards for visual effects in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Mass.Illusions no longer exists, but Pearlman remained in the Berkshires after the company was sold. She now serves as executive director of the Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative, an organization that promotes and facilitates film and media production in the Berkshires.

To read the full story on The Berkshire Eagle, click here.

Last month, Ben Gottlieb, a 27-year-old set lighting technician, wanted to show his support for his union’s campaign to improve working conditions on film sets so he wrote an Instagram post calling for an end to 12- to 14-hour shifts.

As with many of his colleagues, the Brooklynite felt burned out after working grueling hours without substantial breaks for much of the last year. Some nights, he was so tired driving home that he felt inebriated. He even thought about quitting — only two years after joining his union, IATSE Local 52.

The post struck a chord, drawing more than 21,000 likes. Gottlieb was soon inundated with messages from industry colleagues sharing their own stories, which prompted him to create a dedicated page called IATSE Stories. In just a few weeks, more than 500 posts have drawn nearly 17,000 followers to the page.

To read the entire story on the Los Angeles Times’ site, click here.

IATSE leaders say they remain “very far apart” on a wide range of issues in their negotiations with management’s AMPTP for a new film and TV contract.

“After more than six weeks of negotiation over a period of four months, it remains clear that the employers are unwilling to resolve our priority issues – living wages, reasonable rest, meal breaks, sustainable benefits and streaming – aka ‘not so new media,’” IATSE president Matthew Loeb and leaders of the union’s 13 West Coast studio locals said today in a message to their members.

To read the full article on Deadline.com, click here.

IATSE is gearing up for a possible strike against the film and television industry, which would be the first industry-wide strike in the union’s history. The union and management’s AMPTP will return to the bargaining table on Thursday in an effort to reach an agreement on a new film and TV contract in advance of Friday’s expiration of their current deal.

A strike, if it comes to that, would still be several weeks away, however, as IATSE continues to lay the groundwork for a possible walkout, which includes a text-messaging campaign to educate members about the negotiations and what’s at stake.

To read the full article on Deadline, click here.