Blog
Huge congratulations go out to our friends at the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). After seven years and two vetoes, the NDWA was finally able to celebrate the passage of a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in the State of California. The Bill is the third-state level measure to protect domestic workers in the country, following New York and Hawaii. Under the new Bill, domestic workers will be entitled to overtime pay if they work for more than nine hours a day or 45 hours a week.
“Guaranteeing daily overtime for all domestic workers is a momentous win for us,” said Marcela Escamilla, a domestic worker from San Francisco. “This is a big step for respecting and recognizing domestic work as real work, and the fight doesn’t stop here. The fire for this movement will now burn brighter for domestic workers across the country fighting for the same recognition.”
The NDWA, a core national partner organization of CPD, is now moving the fight to establish basic labor protections and work place rights for domestic workers to Massachusetts.
In Suffolk County, New York, racial and ethnic demographics are shifting, creating opportunities to change both politics and public policy. As these changes unfold, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) has been partnering with Make the Road New York (MRNY) and New York Communities for Change (NYCC) to build lasting relationships and shared power within African-American and Latino immigrant communities. In recent years, both MRNY and NYCC have been building membership bases in Suffolk County and have worked together through the Long Island Civic Engagement Table to ensure that policymakers understand that they are accountable to all county residents.
CPD has been adding vital capacity to these multiracial organizing efforts through the Suffolk Opportunity, Security and Dignity Initiative. Last year, partner organizations conducted surveys and one-on-one interviews with hundreds of immigrants and people of color, including leaders of community organizations in Brentwood, Bayshore, Central Islip and Gordon Heights, amassing a wealth of information on household concerns, community priorities and perceptions of changing demographics. In addition, the partner organizations brought together groups of their members for a series of cross-cultural conversations designed to build trust and understanding between communities.
Now, CPD, MRNY and NYCC are building on this foundation by organizing multi-racial, issue-focused action teams. These teams of Suffolk County residents are fighting for a range of critical issues, from just and humane policing, to jobs that offer fair pay and respect and housing that is both high quality and affordable. Over the next few months, these action teams will design and deploy their own strategies for shifting policy and practice in each of these areas.
Demographic shifts like these on Long Island are happening nationwide. CPD is therefore documenting the important work of the Opportunity Security and Dignity Initiative in order to identify lessons and ultimately support the collaborative efforts of other groups of immigrants and people of color seeking to alter the power dynamics in their communities.
This weekend, Local Progress hosted its Second Annual National Convening in Washington, DC. Close to 60 local elected officials from around the country came together to discuss issues such as voting rights, immigrant integration, housing policy, sustainable cities, and the creation of good jobs. Local Progress is the national network of municipal elected officials co-founded by the Center for Popular Democracy in 2012.
The convening heard plenary speeches by American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Secretary Treasurer Mike Fishman, National Education Association (NEA) Executive Director John Stocks, incoming Democracy Alliance President Gara LaMarche, and Georgetown School of Law Professor Peter Edelman. The convening was a unique opportunity in which local elected officials and key advocates came together to build important infrastructure, deepen their relationships, and discuss local policy solutions that will yield lasting progressive change.
To learn more about local solutions to national issues, visit Local Progress’ new website: http://localprogress.org.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) is thrilled to be collaborating with Accelerate Change, the Center for Community Change, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) to develop a national association for immigrant communities.
The national association will provide a range of services, including remittance and other discounts, online support networks, and financial and legal services to newly arrived, longtime, and naturalized immigrants. The new association will leverage the combined power of participating individuals and grassroots organizations across the country to negotiate for lower benefit costs from providers.
As the foreign-born proportion of the the United States population continues to grow (currently at 40 million, 22 million of whom are not naturalized) and immigration reform affecting 7-11 million people looms on the horizon, there is an increasing urgency to be able to deliver vital services that can provide stability and open up economic opportunities for new Americans. In addition to benefit negotiation and delivery, the Association will engage members on issues concerning the immigrant community, and encourage members to become more active in civic life.
Technology will play a vital role in helping the Association manage the challenge of reaching the scale necessary to serve thousands of new members. CPD is building the technological infrastructure of the new Association, and designing the database systems and processes that will support large-scale, efficient benefit delivery and member communications.
CPD is also assisting with the development of the benefits program, helping to test different benefits and services such as discounts, financial services, and legal services in various markets to identify and shape services that will provide the most impact for immigrant communities.
A new report by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), entitled “Fatal Inequality," shows that Latino and other workers of color account for 74% of fatalities from accidents in the New York construction industry even though they represent only 34% of the workforce. Our report was released in collaboration with Make the Road New York.
Our results, compiled from investigations by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), show that 88% of fatal falls in Queens and 87% in Brooklyn involved Latinos and/or immigrants.
“Fatal Inequality,” found that smaller construction companies often have particularly unsafe workplaces, as they tend to be non-union and lack necessary training, proper equipment, and respect for workers’ reports about unsafe conditions. The vast majority, 86%, of Latino or immigrant workers' fatalities from a fall were at sites run by nonunion employers, where workers are often reluctant to report safety violations out of fear of retaliation from contractors.
The findings illustrate that the primary protection for construction workers’ safety, OSHA, is ineffective. Understaffed because of inadequate funding, OSHA is unable to inspect a significant number of construction sites. And, when OSHA does inspect a construction site, the monetary penalties they impose for violations are so small that employers can see them as just an incidental cost of doing business.
Supplemental worker protections are offered by the Scaffold Law in New York State, which requires owners and contractors to provide appropriate and necessary equipment and holds owners and contractors fully liable if their failure to follow the law causes a worker to be injured or killed. Currently, construction and insurance companies are pushing legislation to weaken the Scaffold Law by shifting the responsibility of workplace safety from owners and contractors to the workers. The change would have a dramatic, detrimental impact on worker safety and a disproportionate impact on construction workers of color. The report calls on Governor Cuomo and NYS legislature to resist any attempts to weaken the Scaffold Law.
To download the full report and learn more about Fatal Inequality, click here.
This month the AFL-CIO made a major shift in its orientation by opening its 2013 Convention doors to a wide range of worker, immigrant and community-based organizations. Working closely with partners in ongoing campaigns and projects, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) organized two panel sessions at the convention: “Organizing Workers and Immigration Reform” and “Power Partnerships: Labor/Community Campaigns That Build Worker Power.”
CPD’s first session brought together labor leaders and national immigrant rights groups to strategize about organizing immigrant workers. The session explored the extraordinary potential that immigration reform poses for growing the labor movement and building greater progressive worker power. Speakers described the current efforts under way to plan for the legalization of millions of immigrants, focusing on national coordination of efforts to ensure services are provided to those who need them, and that workers are organized and empowered through strategic grassroots collaborations.
The “Power Partnerships” session explored successful collaborations between labor and community groups to build community based worker power. Speakers shared stories from three campaigns: Multi-city carwash organizing, municipal Paid Sick Days campaigns and the AFT’s transformational partnerships with community.
The AFL-CIO has been a strong partner and driving force pushing for federal immigration reform and is now seeking ways to partner with “Alt-labor” organizations. A host of CPD partner organizations were invited, including: the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Workers Defense Project, the Vermont Workers Center, Make the Road New York, the LA, NY and Chicago carwash campaigns, and Family Values at Work, among many others.
The convention left us energized and excited to continue the work of further deepening the many important relationships between the AFL-CIO, union locals and internationals, and our community based partners.
The national movement to ensure that workers can take time off when they are sick won another victory this week, as the City Council of Jersey City passed an earned sick time ordinance. When the ordinance is signed by the mayor, Jersey City – New Jersey’s second-largest municipality – will become the sixth US city to have enacted an earned sick days law, joining San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, and New York City.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) provided legal support to the coalition that drove the legislative campaign in Jersey City, which was led by SEIU 32BJ, the Working Families Party, and members of the NJ Time to Care Coalition. CPD helped draft the ordinance and negotiate its final wording.
Around 30,000 workers in Jersey City currently cannot take time off from work when they are sick. This threatens their well-being and puts others at risk: when people show up to work sick because they can’t afford to take the day off, they spread illness to their co-workers, customers, and fellow commuters. And, when parents have to send their sick children to school, other children get sick, too.
The Jersey City ordinance will guarantee workers at firms with more than 10 employees the right to take up to five days of paid time off per year. Workers at smaller firms will have the right to take unpaid time off without fear of losing their jobs.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop expressed his support for the ordinance at a press conference on September 9. “We view it as a basic human dignity type of issue. It’s a women’s issue, it’s a family issue, it’s a worker issue. Hopefully, it’s replicated throughout the state in the near future.”
The next target for earned sick days legislation is Newark, the state’s largest city. A super-majority of the City Council has expressed support for legislation there, which will be introduced in the coming weeks.
On September 12, 104 women were arrested for blocking an intersection outside the Capitol Building as part of a demonstration to demand that Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform. Organized by the We Belong Together initiative, the protest highlighted the special burden faced by women who struggle to maintain their livelihood and hold their families together in the face of our unjust immigration policies.
Women and children make up 75% of the undocumented population, but the legislative proposals for reform have not done enough to protect their civil and human rights, or to address their particular needs. Twenty-eight of the women arrested during the protest were undocumented, and in joining the action risked not only criminal charges and incarceration but also subsequent deportation.
Also among the protesters were representatives from many of Center for Popular Democracy's (CPD’s) partners and allies, including CASA de Maryland, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Workers’ Defense Project, CHIRLA, NOW, The Black Institute, the NAACP, and many others. CPD’s own Staff Attorney Emily Tucker was also arrested during the action.
As the women formed a circular human chain outside the Capitol Building chanting “Si se puede” and singing “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a group of 70 children made their way inside to deliver heart-shaped cookies and 6,000 petitions from children and women to the offices of Congress members, demanding legislative action.
The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) is delighted to announce that Ana María Archila will be joining CPD as Co-Executive Director on October 15, 2013. Ana María comes to CPD from our sister organization, Make the Road New York (MRNY) where she has served as Co-Executive Director since its formation in 2007. Before that, Ana María was the Executive Director of the Latin American Integration Center (LAIC), which merged with Make the Road by Walking to create Make the Road New York.
Ana María emigrated to the U.S. from Colombia at the age of 17 and has become a leading advocate for civil rights, health care access, education equity, and immigrant rights in New York State, and nationally. She was awarded a Coro fellowship in 2004, the year after she became Executive Director of LAIC. Under her leadership, LAIC tripled in size and strengthened adult literacy, youth development and health access services to immigrants in Queens and Staten Island. Ana Maria helped LAIC to successfully increase immigrant political participation and power-building through voter mobilization, popular education and community organizing.
Ana María is driven by a deep, passionate commitment to build the strength and resiliency of our nation’s immigrant and working-class communities. In 2007, when LAIC merged with Make the Road by Walking to become Make the Road New York, Ana María became Co-Executive Director with co-founders Andrew Friedman and Oona Chatterjee. Under their leadership, MRNY grew to be the largest membership-led immigrant organization in New York State with over 12,000 members. Under the leadership of Ana Maria, Javier Valdes and Deborah Axt, MRNY has continued to grow – opening new offices in Staten Island and now approaching 14,000 members.
During Ana María's 13 years at MRNY, she has focused on shaping MRNY’s electoral vision, its organizing model, its expansion into Long Island and its LGBTQ organizing work. Ana María also co-directs the Make the Road Action Fund.
“Ana María brings a powerfully loving soul, a quick and intense intelligence and a profound commitment to justice and opportunity to the Center for Popular Democracy and to its allies. While we will miss her sorely at MRNY, we are thrilled that she will be helping to lead CPD’s efforts to significantly strengthen and support rooted, democratic organizations nationwide, and to use that strength to aggressively pursue racial and economic justice,” said Javier H. Valdés, Chair of CPD’s Board of Directors.
Using the medium of art to focus attention on the need for national immigration reform, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and a coalition of labor, community and faith organizations launched What Citizenship Means to Me, a one-day art exhibit featuring the work and personal stories of New Jersey immigrants.
The exhibit offered a highly personalized history of civic participation, immigration and citizenship in America through photographs, on-the-spot art projects and a set of video accounts of citizens describing what being American meant to them.
"This art project puts a face on the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are an indispensable part of our communities. We need Congress to act now [for immigration reform],” said Kevin Brown, director of 32BJ SEIU in New Jersey.
