The Costa Mesa City Council this week repealed a law that banned day laborers from actively soliciting work on city streets. The council unanimously agreed Tuesday night to scrap the ordinance without discussion. Costa Mesa’s anti-solicitation law, which was passed in 2005, prohibited job-seekers from attracting drivers’ attention by waving arms,
Eudes was working the demolition crews three weeks after Hurricane Sandy tore through New York and New Jersey. First as a volunteer and, there later, as a hired hand in the Breezy Point section of Queens, Eudes hoisted waterlogged couches and mattresses out of flooded basements. He ripped out soggy carpets and mold-infested walls. As the recovery has
Eudes was working the demolition crews three weeks after Hurricane Sandy tore through New York and New Jersey. First as a volunteer and, mind later, online as a hired hand in the Breezy Point section of Queens, Eudes hoisted waterlogged couches and mattresses out of flooded basements. He ripped out soggy carpets and mold-infested walls. As the recovery has
On September 8, the AFL-CIO will kick off its national convention in Los Angeles. The last time it was held in L.A. was in 1999, case when the AFL-CIO announced its historic declaration for a legalization program for all undocumented immigrants, increased workplace protection for immigrant workers and an end to employer sanction laws, which it supported back in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). The national convention this year in LA will also be a historic one. With union density at around 12% (the private sector below 7%), the labor movement today is in a state of crisis. As the recent deep recession, or depression as some economists have labeled it, has shown us, the labor movement is really the only safety net that we have in this country for the working class.
The longest and costliest strike in the history of the steel industry hit the United States economy in 1959. Across the nation, the steel industry banked its furnaces, turned off the vital flow of steel, and many of the nation’s auto plants closed down in a few months with their supply of steel used up. Gone are the good old days of strikes
El Centro del Inmigrante is a Staten Island group that promotes the economic advancement and security of immigrant workers. We partnered with El Centro during the Spring 2013 semester as part of a unique collaboration at The New School between Milano Urban Policy students and Parsons’ Communication Design students. Our goal was to envision a
With union membership on the decline, try labor leaders are getting more creative — and some say more desperate — to boost sagging numbers and rebuild their waning clout. Unions are helping non-union fast food workers around the country hold strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. They are trying to organize home day care workers,
With union membership on the decline, labor leaders are getting more creative — and some say more desperate — to boost sagging numbers and rebuild their waning clout. Unions are helping non-union fast food workers around the country hold strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. They are trying to organize home day care workers,
The Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff’s Office—headed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio—learned the hard way May 24 that targeting immigration raids at areas where Latino day laborers congregate does not comport with the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge in Arizona ruled that deputies’ decisions of whether to stop a car for a traffic violation and&nbs
Pablo Alvarado, 46, normally affable and soft-spoken, bristles when he’s called the Cesar Chavez of day laborers. Despite his accomplishments as director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, he doesn’t see himself as a hero. "I do this work because I love it," he says. His manner is relaxed but his ebony eyes, deeply set into