Labor Unions and Factories

NVP has a long history of collaborating with unions to address issues like the closure of local manufacturing factories and job creation. In fact, NVP was created in response to the decline of local brass mills in the Naugatuck Valley Region and has worked to protect worker interests and pensions ever since.

The first 25 years of NVP’s history are covered in-depth in a book entirely devoted to our organization entitled Banded Together: Economic Democratization in the Brass Valley. This book covers NVP’s work in job preservation and affordable housing development. In striving to ward off factory closures and their catastrophic effects, NVP converted three firms into worker cooperatives, transforming power imbalances within the industrial setting into an environment where workers are empowered on a one-worker/one-vote basis to govern and run their workplaces.

Ultimately, NVP saved the pensions of 8,000 factory workers, preserving the wealth built by Greater Waterbury working families and mitigating the negative socioeconomic effects wrought by deindustrialization.

Today, we continue to support labor by standing with union members on picket lines and partnering with them on campaigns.

What we’ve accomplished together:

Organized white and blue collar workers in three employee buy-outs of factories threatened with closing.

Organized meetings with local unions to discuss affordable housing and labor-community organizing, as seen below with the Council of Carpenters.

In 2025, NVP assisted the Ironworkers Union in achieving recognition from their employer and getting to the bargaining table in Oxford, CT. See our mobilization here.