Carwash Campaign Highlights Success of Community-Labor Teamwork
One of the best ways for unions to reach out to new groups of workers is by joining with community-based worker centers across the country—and the campaign to gain better working conditions for carwash workers in Los Angeles recently has done just that, according to several union leaders involved in the campaign.
AFL-CIO General Counsel Jon Hiatt, speaking at a brown bag discussion yesterday at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., said worker centers and unions have a lot in common. They both fight for enforcement of wage and hour laws, oppose misclassification of workers and they fight for immigrant rights. Hiatt says:
We have the experience, the expertise. Worker centers have a strong community base. Bringing the two movements together is good for workers. A few years ago, I couldn’t imagine local or national unions would be working so closely with worker centers.
