NDLON in the News

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New “Unity Unions” Self-Organize to Confront Workplace Abuses

by: Amy Dean, view Truthout, health | Source: Truth-out.org

(Image: JR / t r u t h o u t)

The last five years have been grim and isolating ones for immigrants and working people, right? Overall, this may be the case, but if you talk with organizers at Fuerza Laboral, an independent workers’ center in Rhode Island founded in 2006, you might get a different impression.

Despite difficult times, the group has taken on some bold and determined organizing. And they have some important victories to show for their efforts.

“Fuerza’s roots are really and truly the essence of what the labor movement is: workers organizing themselves and getting together with their communities to identify some real injustices that are systemic throughout the country,” says Josie Shagwert, the group’s executive director. “They got together to say, ‘How can we put a stop to this? Because the system is failing us.’”

Not long ago, workers’ centers were seen as service providers, staff-driven organizations where individuals could go to have caseworkers help with their problems. That has changed over the past decade, and the Rhode Island group is part of the transformation. “Fuerza Laboral builds worker power,” the organization’s web site explains. “[We] organize to end exploitation in the workplace. We train workers in their rights, develop new community leaders, and take direct action against injustice to achieve real victories.”

This work sounds a lot like what unions do. And, yet, Fuerza Laboral is not formally affiliated with the labor movement. Instead, it is an affiliate of National People’s Action (NPA), and shares with other NPA members an organizing model rooted in communities. Fuerza Laboral’s campaigns show two things: why organizing among workers remains essential, and how the labor movement still has work to do in bridging the gap between its traditional practices and new groups doing cutting-edge organizing, especially among immigrants and low-wage workers.

What Good Are Laws Without the Power to Enforce Them?

When Fuerza Laboral first started organizing, it focused on the abuses of temp agencies in Rhode Island, “employers who were underpaying, not paying, taking illegal deductions,” Shagwert says. Having first coalesced around this industry, the group soon moved to take on other businesses with unjust labor practices – notably a local manufacturer called Colibri. On a cold morning in January 2009, some 280 workers showed up for work at the Colibri jewelry factory, a nonunion in East Providence. They found a handwritten sign taped to the factory door reading, “Plant Is Closed. Go Home.”

“Shock turned to anger pretty quickly,” says Shagwert, “with people asking, What kind of is this? People had worked there for 5, 15, 20 years.” One of the workers called a local Spanish-speaking radio station and complained on the air about the closing. The radio host suggested that he get in touch with Fuerza Laboral.

“For the first meeting they had 12 people,” Shagwert says. “By the time they got together for a second meeting there were 60 people in the living room of one of the workers, crowded in to talk about what to do and what an organizing campaign would look like.”

The group discovered that Colibri’s closing violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), which mandates that any business with 100 or more employees must give 60-days notice before closing. (The WARN Act was in the news during the December 2008 occupation of the Republic Windows factory by the Chicago company’s laid-off workers, which Kari Lydersen chronicles in her book “Revolt on Goose Island.”) The law affords an important protection for employees. Unfortunately, there is no federal agency to enforce it. The Colibri workers decided that they would take it upon themselves to make the company obey the law.

“The vast majority of those workers had never organized before,” Shagwert says. Yet, in the course of the campaign, they pulled together a 250-person rally at the Colibri site and also began engaging in direct action. “The workers practiced civil disobedience at the auctions [of company assets],” says Shagwert, “which resulted in 13 people getting arrested.”

During the action, one observer told the local NBC affiliate, “I’d like to see them get justice … This is another AIG deal. The rich get richer, and the workers get the shaft.”

The activists subsequently brought 100 people to the headquarters of the private equity firm in New York that had d the company, and workers held a sit-in in the firm’s lobby. “As a result of all those actions,” Shagwert explains, “a prominent labor lawyer in Rhode Island, Marc Gursky, felt inspired by this grassroots surge of energy. He stepped forward and said, ‘I know that to enforce the WARN Act you are going to need a lawyer.’”

For two years, Fuerza Laboral pursued the case in court, and it ultimately reached a settlement. The precise terms of the agreement have not yet been made public. Nevertheless, Shagwert notes, “I will say that the workers felt really happy that after two years they were vindicated.”

“Unity” and Unions

Fuerza Laboral’s efforts show why, even with only 7 percent of workers in the private sector of the American economy covered by traditional unions, there is no substitute for organizing among working people. Even with pro-employee laws on the books, there is little hope of justice without a grassroots demand. Prior to the labor laws enshrined in the New Deal, mutual aid among workers was the very essence of union life. With collective bargaining in decline, the revival of this type of action may be important for labor’s future as well.

Asked what Fuerza Laboral takes from the organizing model of National People’s Action, the national coalition of which it is a member, Shagwert says, “Networking and constantly building leadership. It’s a real belief that everyone who belongs to your organization, or wants to belong, has the potential to take leadership.”

In addition to developing leadership through their campaigns, Fuerza Laboral has also actively pursued a program of political education. “The essence of Fuerza Laboral is having the passion to develop leaders who will confront social injustice,” says Heiny Maldonado, a community organizer at the group. “We have a year-round calendar of trainings for our members and leaders.”

Shagwert adds: “Since 2006, we have put at least 3,000 workers through a really aggressive popular education model within which our members and leaders get trained to teach basic workers rights. We also hold democracy schools: a multi-week school that teaches about organizing, the history of the labor movement, and the history of immigration. Many of our leaders have come through those courses. They take a course, get fired up, and then we look for ways to plug them into the regular organizing we do. That feels like a huge victory.”

If there’s going to be a progressive revival in this country, having a broadly inclusive approach to worker education and developing community leadership will be just as important to traditional unions as they are to workers’ centers. Currently, the labor movement is engaged in efforts to reach out beyond its established membership in s covered by collectively bargained contracts. From the AFL-CIO’s Working America program to Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) Fight for a Fair Economy, labor organizations are seeking to expand their reach into working-class communities at large, recognizing that if they are perceived as a narrow special interest that benefits only a few workers, the movement will be destined to permanent decline.

Operations such as Fuerza Laboral represent another strain of organizing among workers that is taking place outside of traditional labor structures. A decade ago, the relationships between emerging workers’ centers in different parts of the country and traditional labor unions tended to be mistrustful – if not outright hostile, as Janice Fine discussed in her book “Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream.” Few ties existed in most cities. Since then, both sides have made inroads into this challenge and have strengthened their relationships with one another. In the past five years, the AFL-CIO has formed partnerships with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and with Interfaith Worker Justice.

Yet, gaps in organizational cultures and strategies still remain. The relationships between traditional unions and workers’ centers are continually being redefined, and the interaction of the groups represents a vital ongoing conversation.

As for Fuerza Laboral, Shagwert says: “Our board president has started calling us Unity Union. Which is what we are doing: Representing people in terms of grievances, doing a lot of the things a union would do for its members. But we’re not a union. We don’t identify with workers based on where they are working, we identify with them based on the abuses they are experiencing.”

While she cites alliances with unions such as SEIU and labor groups like Jobs with Justice as crucial to Fuerza’s work, she views her organization differently: “It’s the way I compare working on human rights to working on the rights of one small minority,” she says. “It doesn’t feel right to throw our hat in the ring and fight for one particular group of people. We are fighting for all of us because we are fighting for the most vulnerable.”

She adds, “I want to find a way to say this that isn’t critical of unions. Without unions what would our country be? But I see Fuerza as able to be a little more flexible than a union can be because we don’t represent one particular group of workers.”

Fuerza Laboral at once embodies an impulse toward mutual aid that has deep roots in the history of workers’ struggles and represents a new breed of organization that is expanding in areas where traditional union structures have not been able to reach. For a labor movement that desperately needs to make clear its relevance for all Americans, the task of deepening partnerships with such community allies could not be more urgent.

Amy Dean

Amy Dean is co-author, with David Reynolds, of “A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement” and is president and founder of ABD Ventures. She worked for nearly two decades in the labor movement and now works to develop new and innovative organizing strategies for social change organizations. You can follow Amy on Twitter at @amybdean, or she can be reached via www.amybdean.com.

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As ICE Reports Record Numbers, Two Cities Seek to Ensure Public Safety and Civil Rights By Limiting Agency’s Overreach

Washington, DC.
Today Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray took strong steps to protect district residents from harmful immigration enforcement programs as Santa Clara, CA passed new legislation that leads the nation in setting the standard how to do so. After Santa Clara’s 3-1 vote banning county resources from being used to assist ICE in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws, beyond what is legally required, Supervisor Shirakawa commented, “Today, Santa Clara County makes it official, we don’t do ICE’s job.”

Last year, the two cities were the first in the country to “opt-out” of the discredited Se Communities deportation program.

Now that the federal government has attempted to force their participation through the legally dubious maneuver of declaring the program as mandatory, cities are registering their opposition by seeking new methods to limit ICE’s overreach into local jurisdictions. DC’s executive order brings new transparency and safeguards to the justice system’s interaction with ICE while Santa Clara voted to decline to use any of its resources to respond to ICE’s civil immigration holds.

Sarahi Uribe, organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, explains, “DC should be proud that our city officials continue to strive to protect all the city’s residents. As a result of the Mayor’s order today, everyone in the city is safer. We’ll continue to work together to keep addressing the risks of harmful immigration enforcement.”
Mackenzie Baris, Lead Organizer with DC Jobs with Justice added, “This is a good step in continuing to ensure there’s a bright line between our local police and criminal justice system and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As our communities face growing threats by expanding ICE interior enforcements we will continue to ensure that families are safe and people rights are protected regardless of their status.”

“Santa Clara County is home to a diverse immigrant community and as residents of this county, we believe that all county practices should strive to keep families together and protect the human and civil rights of all people. Therefore, we applaud the Board of Supervisors for leading the way and doing what is right for our county. This policy sends a clear message to immigrant communities that local law enforcement is not ICE,” says Jazmin Segura, Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network.
“Santa Clara County sets a positive example for other localities across the country, first by being one of the first localities in the nation to declare its intention to opt out of S-Comm, and now by passing the most progressive anti-immigration enforcement policy in the nation. This policy demonstrates that local participation in the enforcement of immigration laws is not mandatory and that due process and equal under the law applies to all persons in the U.S.,” said Angie Junck, Staff Attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Similar policies have been implemented in Cook County, IL and San Francisco, CA. A new report released today from the Warren Institute condemning the overreach of Se Communities validates the cities’ new policies. Santa Clara’s new policy can be read at http://bit.ly/sccice

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ICE’s Newest Report: Se Communities Dragnet Includes US Citizens

Reading Guide to Report Available Here

New York, NY – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) welcome the publication of a new report by the Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law that exposes the violations of the rights of both citizens and non-citizens alike by the Se Communities program. Released on the heels of the hard-hitting PBS expose, Lost in Detention, the new report, “SeCommunities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process,” is the first in a series to analyze federal government data related to Se Communities obtained through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, NDLON v. ICE, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, NDLON and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It exposes serious due process concerns with the continued implementation and expansion of the program.

“The Warren Institute study demonstrates how deeply U.S. citizens’ own rights have been eroded in the name of immigration enforcement. The Obama administration should treat this study as the final nail in the coffin of a program that should have been buried long ago,” explains Sarahi Uribe, Organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

The report reveals that over 3,600 U.S. citizens have been apprehended through the Se Communities program and more than one-third of the individuals identified for deportation have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen, thus extending the impact of the program to over 88,000 families with citizens. Furthermore, once funneled through the system, only 52 percent of detainees have a hearing before an immigration judge; and 83% of people arrested through Se Communities are placed in immigration detention.

Said CCR attorney Sunita Patel, “This new report further confirms what we know from the damning records released through our lawsuit and the experience of immigrant communities. Se Communities has been and will always be a dangerously flawed program. The Obama Administration must disconnect immigration enforcement from law enforcement. The results of merging the two systems are erosion of public safety and civil rights.”

For a short reading guide to the report, compiled by the Center for Constitutional Rights and NDLON, go to: http://uncoverthetruth.org/resources/warren-report/
To learn more about advocacy to end the Se Communities program, go to http://www.uncoverthetruth.org.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Se_Communities_by_the_Numbers.pdf


The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org and follow @theCCR.

The mission of the National Day Laborer Organization Network is to improve the lives of day laborers in the U.S. by unifying and strengthening its member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights. Visit www.ndlon.org….

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Marketing Lessons For Day Laborers

Plans progress for opening of worker center.

By Bonnie Hobbs, clinic Saturday, there October 15, 201 | Source: Centre View (ConnectionNewspapers.com)

Marketing Lessons For Day Laborers

Sarahi Uribe advises CIF members and day laborers how best to market the Centreville Labor Resource Center.

When the Centreville Labor Resource Center opens, its organizers want it to be a success, so they recently invited two, day-labor marketing spets to give them .

And on Sept. 27, Sarahi Uribe and Francisco Pacheco spoke with members of the Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF), which will help with the center’s day-to-day operation, under the guidance of a full-time, professional director.

“With the economic situation so bad, it’s incredibly important to do marketing,” said Uribe in English, while Pacheco said the same thing in Spanish to the workers attending the meeting. “But it depends on each organization’s resources and the workers must be involved in the marketing strategy.”

The new center is to help Centreville’s day laborers find jobs, as well as to remove them from street corners near the library and a ping area. The CIF has been busily raising money for it and interviewing potential staff members and hopes to have it operational by the end of the year.

Al Dwoskin, who owns the Centreville Square Shopping Center, proposed the idea for the center and will donate one of his storefronts for it and will pay for utilities. Funding for salaries and other items is coming from grants and private donations.

“We’re in the process of interviewing applicants for the position of center director,” said CIF President Alice Foltz. “When that position is filled, we’ll be able to set the opening date. This means that plans for opening are contingent on our finding the right person and getting that person here and on the job. We hope this will happen in the next couple months.”

Meanwhile, plans are moving forward for the center, which will be open Monday-Saturday, from 6 a.m.-noon. Prospective employers will come directly there to hire workers, instead of picking them up from the streets. That way, an organized system will be in place, jobs will be fairly distributed among all the immigrants participating and workers will be paid for their labor.

Uribe and Pacheco, both regional organizers with the National Day-Laborer Organizing Network, shared their knowledge and tips with the CIF. “We’re based in Washington, D.C., but we work with day-labor centers all over the country,” said Uribe. “And it’s exciting that you’re going to open one here.”

To successfully market their skills, she said, they must first learn about the neighborhood’s needs. “For example, are there construction sites nearby?” she asked. “What is the demand for workers? What are the jobs you see in this area?”

Pacheco then asked the workers at the meeting to tell him their skills and he made a list of the types of jobs for which they’re qualified. These jobs included: Painting, remodeling, new construction, gardening, moving, installing hardwood floors, ceramics work, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry – both fine carpentry and for construction, restaurant work, roofing, installing siding, working in stores and cleaning.

Currently, said the laborers, more construction companies hire them – especially for remodeling jobs – than do individual homeowners. One female laborer said Americans often wonder if an employee is legal, but Koreans – a growing population group in this area – don’t worry about that.

Bill Threlkeld, who ran the day-labor center in Herndon, said that, when that center opened, the employers were 60-percent businesses and contractors and 40-percent homeowners. But, he added, “After awhile, those numbers reversed.”

Noting that she and Pacheco were giving Centreville’s workers just a brief work on marketing, Uribe told them, “You need to do this more in depth. Survey all the workers and employers [for their respective skills and needs]. Also, check with facilities for senior citizens to see what help they could use. Then you can start to better define your marketing plan.”

Uribe advised them to send out postcards and place hangers on people’s doors listing the jobs they can do and the center’s location. “You’ll need to determine how many postcards and door-hangers you’ll put out a month and how much money you have to them,” she said. “Consider advertising in newspapers and on the Internet on Craig’s List, Facebook, etc.”

Threlkeld said that, ultimately, “The most-important marketing is word of mouth.” But, added Uribe, “The best marketing doesn’t mean anything, unless the work is good.” So she stressed the importance of workers making sure they stick to the jobs for which they have the most abilities and be honest about what they can and can’t do.

Pacheco said the center advertising should have a specific color and a simple logo, plus slogans stressing the capable, dependable and skillful work the laborers will do. Uribe noted that, in the District, “Some churches let the workers come in and tell the congregation about the work they do.”

Threlkeld said the Herndon center had a community work day during which center workers wore shirts with the center’s logo and showed that they were giving back to the community. And Pacheco said it’s also important that the worker center be “open to all cultures and races and to women, as well as men.”

The next meeting of the CIF is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m., at the Centreville Regional Library.

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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Organizations “Come Out” Against ICE’s “Se Communities” Deportation Program

October 11, 2011. SAN FRANCISCO, CA. Dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizations across the country are adding their voices to the growing national movement to end ICE’s controversial fingerprint-sharing “Se Communities” (S-Comm) program. By forcing local law enforcement to share fingerprint data for every person arrested – no matter how valid or minor the charge – with federal immigration authorities, S-Comm has contributed to skyrocketing numbers of detentions and deportations.
Prompted by ICE’s unilateral move to make the highly debated program mandatory, national, regional, and local LGBTQ organizations—including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) — felt compelled to mark National Coming Out Day by adding their voices to the national upsurge of opposition to S-Comm today.
“NCAVP is concerned by the impact of police/ICE collaboration on LGBTQ survivors of violence. It is not uncommon for LGBTQ survivors of violence to be arrested when they call police for help. NCAVP member programs know that many LGBTQ survivors do not access police for safety when they experience violence, and the Se Communities program may increase fear, barriers to safety, and risk of detention and deportation for LGBTQ immigrant communities,” said Chai Jindasurat, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Coordinator at the New York City Anti-Violence Project. “In honor of this year’s National Coming Out Day, NCAVP calls for an end to a program that has severe consequences for LGBTQ people.”
In a statement released on National Coming Out Day, over sixty LGBTQ groups call on President Obama to take immediate action to eliminate this destructive program. California Assemblymember and longtime LGBTQ rights activist Tom Ammiano echoed this call: “Every day LGBTQ Californians are being unfairly deported leading to tragic consequences for communities both here and across the country. I am urging the Obama Administration to end the deception around S-Comm and suspend this damaging program.”
“The LGBTQ movement has often been an example of how to hold your head high with pride in the face of discrimination. As migrants, we’re inspired by National Coming Out Day and strengthened by this show of solidarity,” said Sarahi Uribe, Organizer of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
“We hear regular reports of LGBTQ people who find themselves in deportation proceedings after being profiled by their race, class, sexuality, and gender as they go about their daily lives or even as they navigate domestic violence,” said Morgan Bassichis of the San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the country’s oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization. “Rather than making anyone more ‘se’, S-Comm endangers all communities by tearing at the fabric of family and support networks and creating a culture of fear.”
The statement marks a historic confluence of movements for LGBTQ rights and migrant rights, and increased attention to migrant issues within LGBTQ communities. “On this National Coming Out Day, we recognize that LGBT immigrants need more than acceptance from family, schools, and neighbors to be “out”: they need to be free from profiling, detention, and deportation,” said Mónica Enriquez-Enriquez of Streetwise and Safe, an organization working with LGBTQ youth of color in New York City and signatory to the statement.
For background information on the Se Communities program, read “Restoring Community” at http://altopolimigra.com/s-comm-shadow-report/
Founded in 1979, Community United Against Violence (CUAV) works to build the power of LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning) communities to transform violence and oppression. We support the and leadership of those impacted by abuse and mobilize our broader communities to replace cycles of trauma with cycles of safety and liberation. As part of the larger social justice movement, CUAV works to create truly safe communities where everyone can thrive.
National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) works to unify and strengthens is member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize, and organize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights.
Streetwise and Safe (SAS) is a New York City-based organization working to create opportunities for LGBTQQ youth of color who experience homelessness, policing, and criminalization to claim a seat at policy discussion tables as full participants, speak out on their own behalf, act collectively to protect and advance their rights, and demand choices that allow them to maximize their safety, self-sufficiency, and self-determination.
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Redondo Beach to ask U.S. Supreme Court to uphold day laborer law

By Matt Stevens | October 6, try 2011 | 2:27pm | Source: L.A. Now Blog (LATimes)

 

Redondo Beach to ask U.S. Supreme Court to uphold day laborer law

Photo: Day laborers and supporters march on Redondo Beach City Hall. Credit: Brian van der Brug.

In what’s likely to be a final effort to salvage its controversial day laborer law, officials in Redondo Beach said they would urge the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling that declared the city’s anti-solicitation ordinance unconstitutional.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-2 last month to strike down the law, which has been on the books in Redondo Beach for about two decades.

Experts said the ruling could have consequences for dozens of other cities that have adopted anti-solicitation laws, which are often used to control day laborers who gather on public streets and sidewalks while seeking work.

City officials have maintained that the ordinance was meant to promote traffic safety, but it sparked controversy in 2004 when police arrested more than 60 laborers in a monthlong operation dubbed the Day Labor Enforcement Project.

Though the appeals court was decisive in its ruling, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski issued a sharply worded dissenting opinion, arguing that “when large groups of men gather at a single location, they litter, vandalize, urinate, block the sidewalk, harass females and damage property.

“The majority is demonstrably, egregiously, recklessly wrong,” he continued. “If I could dissent twice, I would.”

City Atty. Mike Webb said Redondo Beach modeled its law after a nearly identical Phoenix ordinance that the 9th Circuit upheld in 1986.

“If cities can’t do that then there’s no way for cities to be able to responsibly protect public safety and welfare,” Webb said.

But Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of the plaintiffs in the case, called the appeal a “scam of taxpayers’ money.”

“This is a violation of human and civil rights,” he said. “I thought this was going to be a time for dialogue, for openness, for finding constructive solutions — not engaging in this type of back-and-forth anymore.”

Photo: Day laborers and supporters march on Redondo Beach City Hall. Credit: Brian van der Brug.

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