The Workers' Opportunity to Purchase Act (WOPA)

The Workers' Opportunity to Purchase Act (WOPA)

Hope Williams (Legislative Director, Sustainable Economies Law Center) and Paola Eisner (co-op attorney, Tuttle Law Group) will review nationwide efforts to develop worker Opportunity to Own (OTO) legislation. They will also discuss their California coalition's ongoing efforts to create and pass the Worker's Opportunity to Purchase Act (WOPA) in San Francisco. 

Hope Williams is the Director of Legislative Advocacy at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. As a black queer woman in the Bay Area she is devoted to housing rights and organizing people-power to fight the oppressive white supremacist regime. She spends most of her time making sure that the law is accessible to the people. She is a San Francisco City Commissioner, and serves as a board member for the San Francisco Community Land Trust, California Community Land Trust Network, and East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative. Her background includes managing political campaigns, organizing within the boycott division of UniteHere!, organizing endorsements for Berkeley's Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, and coalescing with tenants rights organizations. In her spare time, she secretly trains people on how to get arrested through coordinated acts of civil disobedience.

Paola Eisner provides transactional legal services to cooperatives and other mission-aligned businesses as an attorney at Tuttle Law Group. Paola's firm is based in San Francisco, California, and she provides legal services in English and Spanish. Paola works with a range of different cooperative enterprises, including worker, agricultural, housing, platform, and other cooperatives, as well as intentional communities and nonprofits. Paola also enjoys working on legislative drafting and policy development. Paola is on the board of the Co-op Professionals Guild and is on the steering committee of Cooperation Richmond. You can reach Paola at paola@cooplawgroup.com.

MCLE will be provided for California. CPG thanks the Sustainable Economies Law Center for being the MCLE sponsor.