About PROGRESS Worx
Stuart Bass, Principal
In 2020, Stuart Bass started PROGRESS Worx to empower unions by offering customized and creative solutions to enhance leadership and team effectiveness, foster alliances, promote positive work environments and achieve sustainable success through organization development and partnership alignment.
Combining more than three decades of industry experience with a Master's degree from the George Mason University School of Public Policy, through the National Labor College, Stuart brings a a proven track record for getting the job done with sense of humor, optimism, and a strategic approach. PROGRESS Worx is connected to a national network of workforce development intermediaries and organizations that offer models of best practices for union and employer engagement.
Stuart's strategic planning and implementation skills for partnership alignment builds bridges for program development and implementation. He's worked on projects across the U.S. that provide access to family sustaining jobs for those who have been denied opportunities. His approach is honed by many years working with employers, unions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. His experience as a certified structural welder enables him to communicate on the shop floor and in the boardroom.
Stuart succeeds because he helps others (groups and individuals) address challenges to reach their goals. With a focus on joint decision-making, he energizes program development, project management, and team building.
Please Allow Me To Introduce Myserlf
I am an experienced proposal writer, grant & project manager as well as an educator. After I earned a Master's degree in Organizational Development and Knowledge Management through the National Labor College in 2012. I then received a scholarship to attend the New York State AFL-CIO Union Leadership Institute at Cornell University in 2014 and received a certificate for Advanced Labor Union Leadership. My capstone project was working with Paul Clark, Doug Allen, and Mary Bellman at Penn State University to start up the Labor Leadership Institute in 2015. I am also a Certified Practitioner of the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, I have been a union member since I was 20 years old. I started with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union working as a machine operator in a sweater mill. I learned how to weld in the Army working on helicopters and joined the Iron Workers Union as a certified structural welder in fab shops.
I completed 30 years at South Eastern PA Transportation Authority (SEPTA) starting as a body mechanic on trolleys and subway rail vehicles. I then worked in the facilities division as a structural welder. I was appointed a Transport Worker Union full time Business Agent and served under six Local 234 Presidents.
As the first TWU Local 234 training coordinator, I learned how to start, and fund programs through grant-writing, labor management training programs. In 2002, the PA AFL-CIO appointed me statewide coordinator of the Keystone Transit Career Ladder Partnership funded by the PA Department of Labor & Industry. Thirty-three public transit agencies and 22 local unions participated in the partnership. This program became a model for the PA Department of Labor & Industry funded Industry Partnership program for Local Workforce Development Boards.
In 2005, I was appointed the founding director of Keystone Development Partnership (KDP) formed by the PA AFL-CIO. KDP developed a close relationship with the PA Department of Labor and Industry and promoted the Industry Partnership program. Local Workforce Development Boards contracted KDP to manage partnerships as well.
In 2016, KDP helped to staff the newly formed PA Apprenticeship and Training Office. KDP developed a national reputation for supporting labor management training programs. I am very proud of designing the KDP Registered Apprenticeship Navigator Apprenticeship that was registered in 2020 and continues to recruit cohorts to expand the Keystone Apprenticeship Ambassador network.
I left KDP to go on my own as PROGRESS Worx to do the work I love – collaboration with progressive organizations that serve the community; both on the job and in the neighborhoods.
I currently serve as subject matter expert for the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute for the USDOL funded Partnership to Advance Manufacturing Apprenticeship (PAMA) and for Jobs For the Future programs, Improving Diversity and Equity in Apprenticeships for Manufacturing (IDEA-M) and the National Innovation Hub for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Registered Apprenticeship. I delivered a one-day workshop for mentors to public transit agencies across the US with the International Transportation Learning Center. JFF based their online course, DEIA in Mentorship for Registered Apprenticeship content on my workshop. The U.S. Department of Labor has designated me and Apprenticeship Ambassador.
I plan to do what I can to expand the network of workforce development intermediaries that come from a labor background. Unions have always been good to me and for my family. I hope my work builds capacity for union representatives to build the labor movement.
I am proudest of my family.
I’m married over 40 years to an educator who taught me how to write and showed me how to raise two children that have accomplished so much.
With three grandchildren, I am motivated to do what I can to make the world a better place.
PROGRESS Worx, LLC
PROGRESS Worx started with the objective to align organizations to collaborate for programs that provide access to family sustaining jobs. A powerful change in people's lives happens at the workplace and can benefit them at home with their families and in the community.
PROGRESS Worx offers technical assistance to connect with a national network of workforce development intermediaries and organizations that offer models of best practices for customizing training and apprenticeship programs. Transformative learning promotes a balance of work, home and community.
Collaborations
