by Mike Hall, Aug 9, 2006

Real Media | Windows Media
Real Media | Windows Media
Real Media | Windows Media
Real Media | Windows Media

En Español. 

The AFL-CIO and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) have reached a historic partnership agreement that will pave the way for AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations and NDLON’s day laborer worker centers to work together on issues ranging from workplace rights to immigration reform to health and safety and other job-related concerns.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney announced the agreement at today’s meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Chicago. Says Sweeney:

The work being done by worker centers and NDLON in particular is some of the most important work in the labor movement today, and it’s time to bring our organizations closer together. Through this watershed partnership, we will strengthen our ability to promote and enforce the workplace rights for all workers—union and non-union, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

Speaking at the AFL-CIO NDLON press conference, NDLON Executive Director Pablo Alvarado says:

One of the ways to ensure that the rights of all workers in this country are protected is to ensure that the 12 million undocumented immigrants come out of the shadows. We thank President Sweeney for his leadership in supporting a legalization program with a path to citizenship and political equality.

The 140 worker centers in 80 cities and towns serve as a place for day laborers and low-wage workers, many of them immigrants and people of color, to come together and learn about their rights. The centers also operate as advocates for the workers, approximately 200,000 in the United States. Earlier today, the Executive Council passed a policy statement to allow the creation of the partnership with NDLON and with individual worker centers.

(In May, Janice Fine, assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, wrote a Point of View column for the AFL-CIO website about worker centers and how the labor community can work with the centers for both their benefits.)

The centers provide a structure by which workers join together to set their own terms and conditions of employment. In Agoura Hills, Calif., day laborers have set their minimum wage at $15 per hour. Centers also provide a variety of services, including leadership development, legal representation to recover unpaid wages, English classes, workers’ rights education and access to health clinics, bank accounts and loans. Through creative strategies, worker centers have achieved significant success in improving working conditions and raising wages for low-wage workers in high turnover industries and in permanent employment relationships.

The worker centers play an important role in the immigrant community by helping immigrant workers understand and enforce their workplace rights. They also can help bridge cultural divides in places where the centers serve ethnically and racially mixed populations. In the South, such centers are working with Latino and African communities to try to overcome tensions between the two groups, both in the workplace and the community.

NDLON is the largest association of worker centers in the country and serves as an umbrella organization for more than 40 of the worker centers. It works to advance low-wage worker and immigrant rights and to develop successful models for helping immigrant workers organize.

During the past several years, AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations have established relationships with the centers and have worked together on workplace and legislative efforts and, under the new partnership agreement, will work with NDLON on issues, including:

• Advancing workplace rights for day laborers and all workers in general—both immigrants and U.S. born.
• Pursuing the shared goals of comprehensive immigration reform that support workplace rights and that includes a legalization program with a clear path to citizenship and political equality.
• Combating anti-immigrant, anti-worker legislation such as H.R. 4437 that seeks to criminalize workers.
• Drafting and promoting alternative legislation to advance a positive approach to comprehensive immigration reform, and drafting model legislation that can be used at the state level to ensure protection of workers’ rights in any immigration reform efforts undertaken locally.
• Supporting and defending day laborer worker centers in order to establish and maintain decent labor standards and working conditions for all workers.
• Developing educational programs to inform NDLON members, AFL-CIO members and the public at large about the challenges facing both day laborers and the unionized workforce on such issues as health and safety, wage and hour enforcement and other workplace protections of importance to both communities.
• Strengthening local collaboration between unions and worker centers.
• Collaborating on impact litigation and the advancement of civil rights.

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