Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream

[Excerpt] Through their service provision, advocacy, and organizing work, worker centers are helping to set the political agenda and mobilize a growing constituency to make its voice heard on fundamental labor an immigration reform. This work, in and of itself instrumental to a brighter future for low-wage workers in the United States, is also indispensable to the revitalization of organized labor and progressive politics in America

Organizing for Prevailing Wage In Florida

[Excerpt] The Broward AFL-CIO had spent a great deal of its time and member unions\u27 money helping to elect several county commissioners. Now it posed the prevailing wage ordinance as a litmus test: Would county commissioners who had benefited from labor backing and had pledged their support to labor at election time, support it? Or would they side with the Board of Realtors, the Associated Builders and Contractors and other anti-union forces

Co-Production: Bringing Together the Unique Capabilities of Government and Society for Stronger Labor Standards Enforcement

The Lift Fund is a first-of-its-kind partnership between labor unions, philanthropy and worker centers. Its goal is to strengthen and advance the movement for workers' rights, good jobs and a fair economy by funding collaborative projects between worker centers and traditional labor organizations. The LIFT Fund aims to explore, develop and test innovative strategies to improve labor market standards and build long-term economic and political power for workers. It does this by identifying promising partnerships, documenting successful models and sponsoring cross-sector, field-level convenings to share emerging practices

Solving the Problem from Hell: Tripartism as a Strategy for Addressing Labour Standards Non-Compliance in the United States

The crises of wage theft and industrial accidents in low-wage America reflect erosion of the social contract but they also reflect a crisis in labour standards enforcement. This article draws upon archival material, case studies, and interviews to make the case for tripartism—an enforcement regime that partners workers’ organizations with government inspectors to patrol workers’ industries and labour markets for unfair competition. It extends to the federal level previous work in which Jennifer Gordon and i have documented dynamic contemporary examples of tripartism at the state and local levels. The article explores historical precedents for tripartist collaboration on the federal level at the Department of Labor (DOL) in the Wage and Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It then considers several tripartist initiatives at the DOL under the Obama administration, the legal obstacles that purportedly stand in the way of more robust approaches, and some potential solutions. The article concludes with an explanation of why formalizing partnerships matters

Co-enforcing Labor Standards: The Unique Contributions of State and Worker Organizations in Argentina and the United States

Labor inspection is a central response to the tremendous gap between regulations on the books and outcomes for workers throughout the world. Scholarly and policy debates on labor regulation have focused attention on improving the targeting of enforcement, changing strategies of street-level agents, and creating private alternatives to state regulation. This paper argues that these proposals, while important, fail to systematically incorporate the potential contributions of worker organizations and, as a result, overlook opportunities for co-enforcing labor standards, a key element of labor inspection. By contrast, we develop a framework to analyze the relationships between worker organizations and state regulators that underpin co- enforcement. We ground this framework empirically in comparative cases, set in Argentina and the United States, presenting two cases of co-enforcement in highly different institutional contexts. By doing so, we seek to illuminate key attributes of labor inspection and guide attempts to enhance enforcement by forging partnerships between regulators and worker organizations

Strengthening Labor Standards Enforcement through Partnerships with Workers’ Organizations

Structures of employment in low-wage industries, a diminished wage and hour inspectorate, and an unworkable immigration regime have combined to create an environment where violations of basic workplace laws are everyday occurrences. This article identifies four “logics” of detection and enforcement, arguing that there is a mismatch between the enforcement strategies of most federal and state labor inspectorates and the industries in which noncompliance continues to be a problem. In response, the authors propose augmenting labor inspectorates by giving public interest groups like unions and worker centers a formal, ongoing role in enforcement in low-wage sectors. In three case studies, the authors present evidence of an emergent system—one that harkens back to a logic proposed by the drafters of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) but never implemented—of empowering those closest to the action to work in partnership with government

Meeting Mandates in a New Labour Federalism: Opportunities and Challenges

Worker advocates seeking to affect labour policy change in the United States have shifted their attention and energy to states and localities in a move that has been called the “new labour federalism.” new labour federalism has broadened the scope of public worker protections, while also making the enforcement of those protections even more necessary. In this article, we draw on interviews with agencies and advocates, analysis of agency enforcement data, violation estimates, and publicly available information to understand better how federalism has created both opportunities and challenges for workers, employers, and agencies tasked with enforcing employment standards. We contextualise the discussion by drawing on a historical analysis of primary documents from the national Archives about how the Fair Labor Standards Act — the flagship federal wage and hour law in the United States passed in 1938 — was initially implemented. We argue that American federalism has provided significant yet decidedly uneven opportunities for substantive improvements in labour standards both in terms of policy as well as implementation and enforcement. Implementing labour standards laws at the state and local levels brings with it both enduring challenges and potential opportunities related to a) budgeting, staffing, and capacity; b) specific enforcement practices and strategy; c) the coordination of enforcement across agencies; and d) the creation and diffusion of legislative models. We argue that organising, coalition-building, and policymaking at the local level provides a necessary avenue to address these challenges and ultimately to uphold the rights of workers given today’s political and economic realities

Minimum Wage Enforcement: The Unfinished Business of Florida\u27s Constitutional Amendment

Prior to 2004, Florida was one of seven states without its own minimum wage. In 2004, state voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot initiative that enshrined the right to a state minimum wage in Florida’s Constitution. In 2020, voters passed a second ballot initiative that gradually raises Florida’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. Despite bipartisan voter support, the Authors found that since 2004, the State has taken no formal actions to enforce Florida’s minimum wage law. Further, the Authors’ analysis of U.S. Census data demonstrated that amid the failure of State enforcement, minimum wage violations rose dramatically, disproportionately impacting women, Black, Latinx, and immigrant workers. Likewise, of the industries with the highest violation rates, five of the top six are key to Florida’s economy. The Authors argue that Floridian workers need a state department of labor to fully realize the promise of Florida’s constitutional right to the minimum wage

How a Community Engagement Model of Near-Peer Counseling Impacts Student Mentors’ College Outcomes

This study examines how a community engagement model of near-peer counseling impacts counselors’ own college success as underrepresented students in higher education, here defined as one-year persistence in college. Near-peer mentors participated in a program provided by College Access: Research and Action (CARA), which trains young people to support peers in their home communities at New York City public high schools and City University of New York (CUNY) 2-year colleges through critical college application, enrollment, and retention milestones. Aggregated across 4 years of data, our results indicate CARA near-peer counselors are nearly twice as likely to persist in college (p \u3c .001) as peers with similar demographic and academic characteristics not participating in CARA. Findings are replicated for students of color (2.09 times higher, p \u3c .001) and economically disadvantaged students (1.78 times higher, p = .003). Implications for peer mentor program development through public university–community partnerships are discussed