Director of Organizing + Membership

Director of Organizing + Membership

Department

Senior Leadership Team

Reports to

Executive Directors

Location

Remote, with regular travel to downtown Toronto, Niagara and New Brunswick

Position

Full Time, Permanent or Term

Salary Band

$87,500 + benefits

Effective Date

November 1, 2026 (flexible)

Submit CV and letter of interest to hiring@migrantworkersalliance.org as soon as possible. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

The work

MWAC organizes migrant workers to turn individual problems into collective campaigns that build organized migrant power. We connect with workers (at farms, fish plants, in care facilities, through WhatsApp groups, hotlines, support clinics, and casework), support them to address their immediate problems, bring them into relationship with one another, and support them to develop their leadership.

Migrant leadership is our horizon. We want workers to do outreach, lead meetings, speak to the media, set strategies and tactics, develop plans and implement them.

The Role

We're hiring a Director of Organizing + Membership to build worker power across the regions and sectors where we focus our work: low-waged work in the Greater Toronto Area, farm work in Niagara, and fish and seafood processing in New Brunswick.

This is a builder's role. Our work has grown significantly over the years, and we must now re-design our methods so that we can make the next leap in worker power. We have four organizers today (two in the GTA, one in Niagara, one in New Brunswick) and we need to grow. You will design how we grow - how we structure, recruit, train, and support a new layer of junior organizers in each region. Before setting direction, you'll spend real time on the ground in each region, understanding the conditions, relationships, and opportunities that are specific to the regions and industries.

If you have experience building worker power from the base up, at scale, and want to lend those skills to building migrant power when xenophobia is at its highest - this is that job.

Who this is for

• We're a migrant-led organization without deep pockets, and the salary reflects that. We're looking for someone who does this work because they believe in it.
• We're open to experienced organizers from worker centres or unions - including from outside Canada - who may want to work on this for a defined term. If that means a sabbatical, a secondment, a fellowship, or a term appointment for you, let's talk about how to make it work.
• The role is posted as full-time and permanent, but for the right person we are open to finding an arrangement that works, including regarding salary.

What you'll build

• Build and grow the base. Lead MWAC's base-building across regions and sectors. Ensure that our casework and peer support model can be more effective as organizing modalities. Set concrete membership goals and create systems that make growth real and trackable. Coordinate the work across regions and sectors to build consistency across our rural and urban work. Help organizers assess where MWAC has real opportunities, where relationships need deepening, and where not to overextend. Hold the balance between immediate campaign and casework demands and long-term base-building.
• Develop leaders and political education. Build a political education and organizing skills program from scratch to support our base, members and leaders to connect their individual circumstances to the immigration and labour systems that produce them. Practice whole-worker organizing and build leadership that is durable and democratic, not dependent on any one staff person and not one that remains tied to a non-profit model.
• Build the team and the structure. Design MWAC's organizer recruitment program and implement it, region by region. Supervise and coach new organizers through regular check-ins, work planning, and feedback. Help build a team culture of trust, clarity, and political purpose. Address workload, conflict, and performance directly and constructively. Reduce MWAC's dependence on informal knowledge and individual relationships, so organizing can survive turnover and scale. Build a culture of reflection, practice, and learning across the team and membership.
• Win campaigns that build power. Although campaign lead roles will live elsewhere in the organization, you will ensure that our campaign work results in deeper worker leadership and ensure that campaigns - whether we win or lose - increase membership, leadership, and political education.
• Share leadership of the organization. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, share responsibility for the whole organization - strategy, budget, staffing, culture, and long-term sustainability - and bring a base-building lens to every major decision. Ensure organizing is connected to casework, campaigns, communications, operations, and fundraising.

What we're looking for

• Deep, demonstrated experience building worker power - running an organizing program, mentoring organizers, and winning campaigns that build power.
• A real understanding of migrant workers' conditions - how immigration and labour systems (temporary status, work permits, employer power) shape life on the job and in the community. Lived experience as a migrant is welcome but not required.
• Experience across both rural and urban organizing. You may have more experience in one but you must understand both and build systems that work in both.
• Strong political education and leadership development practice, grounded in workers' lived experience and tied to action.
• The willingness to build from scratch - systems, teams, and structure - in a lean, migrant-led organization. This will include regular travel to Niagara, New Brunswick, and downtown Toronto.
• A commitment to migrant justice, racial justice, gender equity, and anti-oppression practice, and a readiness to recognize and challenge systems of oppression inside the organization as well as outside it.

What success looks like in the first year

• MWAC has created a new organizational chart and initiated hiring of new organizers.
• MWAC has a clear organizing and membership strategy that organizers have internalized and can implement.
• There's a working organizer recruitment program, and new junior organizers are recruited, trained, and supported in each region.
• Members have clearer pathways from first contact to leadership, and campaigns are more deeply rooted in member leadership and base-building. More members are taking active roles in MWACʼs work and taking more leadership.
• The organizing depends less on informal knowledge and individual relationships, and more on systems that can grow.

Working conditions

• 35 hours/week; evening and weekend work and regular travel are essential.
• Employer- provided benefits package.
• The role involves supporting staff and members through urgent, sensitive, and high-pressure situations, and participating in actions, outreach, and community meetings.