00:00:09.550 --> 00:00:13.430
Cabañita, pay now. Cabañita, pay now!

00:00:13.430 --> 00:00:21.600
What does it say? Pay now. What does it say? Pay now!

00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:25.810
Cabañita, pay now. Cabañita, pay now!

00:00:25.810 --> 00:00:33.360
No more wage theft. Cabañita, pay now!
No more wage theft! Cabañita, pay now!

00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:39.120
What do we want? That payment! What do we want? That payment! What do we want? That payment!

00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:43.910
When? Now! When? Now! When? Now!

00:00:43.910 --> 00:00:52.380
Well, first of all, we went to a place called Cabañita.
We went with friends, a member named

00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:57.010
José in which the lady [his employer]
had owed him a lot of overtime

00:00:57.010 --> 00:01:02.100
and did not pay him. They would make him work
many hours. The case was in the

00:01:02.100 --> 00:01:05.980
Department of Labor, but they haven’t
been able to accomplish much.

00:01:05.980 --> 00:01:11.270
They already told her what she has to pay, but
she won’t comply. So, we do these type of actions

00:01:11.270 --> 00:01:21.830
to pressure them to pay sooner. We were in
the agency, it is an agency that I’ve worked at.

00:01:21.830 --> 00:01:29.000
The lady knows me. And I had the pleasure to
tell her what I truly felt.

00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:36.260
And she always believed that the workers
needed to be humiliated in front of her.

00:01:36.260 --> 00:01:42.060
And I told her what I truly felt. I told her,
“I know the bad thing that you do,

00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:47.890
because I was a worker. And I know that you
would send us to places—you wouldn’t tell us

00:01:47.890 --> 00:01:54.530
what we were going to do, you wouldn’t train
us, and you wouldn’t pay us the eight hours.”

00:02:03.490 --> 00:02:08.580
New Labor started with an idea back in the mid 90s. Back in the 90s, what we were noticing was work was changing.

00:02:08.580 --> 00:02:16.800
It was a lot harder, to have a traditional job and work up a job ladder. Right. From, you know, an entry level position up to

00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:22.800
supervisory. Right. Work was becoming much more mobile. And, you know, people were bouncing back and forth from job to job,

00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:28.180
looking for better pay or better benefits. Right. We were noticing here in New Brunswick, a lot of workers were working

00:02:28.180 --> 00:02:34.110
through temp agencies, and a lot of those workers happen to be Latino. And these are kinds of jobs that, you know,

00:02:34.110 --> 00:02:40.490
had no protections whatsoever. So, the idea of forming New Labor was to create an alternative model of organization,

00:02:40.490 --> 00:02:46.910
for folks who didn't have access to a traditional union at the moment or didn't have access to better pay and better benefits.

00:02:46.910 --> 00:02:50.420
Right. So it’s a big task, but where do you actually start?

00:02:50.420 --> 00:02:57.760
In the late 90s, I actually hired a guy named Richie Cunningham. Richie and I struck up a very positive working relationship,

00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:04.720
friendship, and we started talking about alternatives to what was out there. Like, could we create a different kind of union?

00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:10.230
Our thinking was moving along the lines of what was actually here in New Brunswick at the time, which was a lot of temp workers,

00:03:10.230 --> 00:03:15.860
and we started to see this influx of workers coming in, immigrant workers. And we found that most of them were from

00:03:15.860 --> 00:03:23.820
Oaxaca, Mexico. And we just started to see this growth of this industry, of temping and low wage temping and all of it was going

00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:32.250
to these warehouses. They were sending workers to warehouses ten miles south of here, off of exit 8a. And we took it upon ourselves

00:03:32.250 --> 00:03:38.710
to say, well, this is an opportunity maybe where we could figure out a different way of organizing and representing workers based on

00:03:38.710 --> 00:03:43.760
temporary work, which was something historically that unions, really hadn't done very much.

00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:52.560
Traditionally, people all gather in one workplace, right? So when everybody gathers in one workplace, whether it's an office,

00:03:52.560 --> 00:04:00.990
whether it's a retail space, whether it's a factory, everybody is there. So it is easy for organizers to organize people.

00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:08.580
But when they are all over the place, when you don't know where they are, when these are employees but not really employees,

00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:15.210
how do you go about organizing? It makes it very difficult for workers to unionize.

00:04:15.210 --> 00:04:23.760
It's very hard to organize in a traditional sense, a temp agency, because they have multiple facilities that they send people to,

00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:31.430
and workers are coming in and out as it is. So it's very hard to organize in that sense. So, the idea was to create a new kind of

00:04:31.430 --> 00:04:38.480
organization for workers who didn't have access to an organization like that, but it is based around the same kind of ideas of a union,

00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:44.820
right? That it is your voice in the workplace, you know,
a democratic entity where people

00:04:44.820 --> 00:04:48.910
can make decisions and improve their and improve
their conditions. Right? In the workplace.

00:04:48.910 --> 00:04:56.290
When industrial unions grew out of the 30s and 40s, the depression and World War two, the idea was you organize

00:04:56.290 --> 00:05:01.210
the workers at a jobsite where everyone had a full-time job.
That model became obsolete.

00:05:01.210 --> 00:05:09.100
And employers started doing things like avoiding unions, resisting unions, and taking the jobs overseas or threatening to take

00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:17.980
the job overseas. Unions lost their political power, their economic power to stand up to employers in a way that would allow them to

00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:25.780
bargain on equal terms. The bargaining table shifted tremendously in the direction of the employers and

00:05:25.780 --> 00:05:34.040
workers didn't have, much leverage. Also, while that was going on, and this industry of warehousing was growing exponentially,

00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:40.880
in part because the jobs that were leaving this country, those jobs were being taken by developing countries

00:05:40.880 --> 00:05:47.380
and the largest being China. And they were producing the goods, and the goods came to the ports, and they had to be

00:05:47.380 --> 00:05:54.140
moved so that they could be brought to the shelves for consumers to buy at a much lower, cost. And so in New Jersey a lot of

00:05:54.140 --> 00:06:00.100
what happened is, instead of manufacturing, we got warehousing, logistics, and the idea of moving goods became,

00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:09.110
the thing that we do here. So these start to look like these light manufacturing jobs, right, that take the place of heavy industry.

00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:17.830
But they're not jobs that are consistent, like a regular full-time job. They're jobs that are based on, demand.

00:06:17.830 --> 00:06:24.880
And if you can imagine an assembly line that changes from week to week based on stuff that they may be moving and producing

00:06:24.880 --> 00:06:31.390
all at the same time. And the fact that you don't need a full-time workforce for that, because you could, you could have a workforce

00:06:31.390 --> 00:06:38.730
of 60 people that's constant. But you may need to ramp up to 200 people over the course of a month and then back down to 60

00:06:38.730 --> 00:06:43.730
over the course of the next month.
So that being the case, the warehouses were looking

00:06:43.730 --> 00:06:47.860
for people that they could bring on when they needed them
and lay them off when they didn't.

00:06:47.860 --> 00:06:51.570
You are a commodity in that sense and they
don't want to make an investment in you.

00:06:51.570 --> 00:06:57.830
They just want to use you for the day, the week, the month, or maybe even the year. But then after that, you're gone.

00:06:59.960 --> 00:07:06.000
New Labor was founded in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where most of the members are temporary workers

00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:14.760
hired by staffing agencies. The majority of these temp workers support New Jersey’s logistics industry,

00:07:14.760 --> 00:07:20.310
and are assigned warehouse jobs throughout the state.
A dispersed workforce

00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:24.650
these temp workers routinely switch job roles and warehouses.

00:07:37.870 --> 00:07:47.960
Within the logistics and warehousing industry, you've seen a very interesting structure of employment relations in which

00:07:47.960 --> 00:07:55.890
staffing agencies play a big role. Oftentimes when we think of staffing agencies, we think of temporary agencies, temporary jobs.

00:07:55.890 --> 00:08:02.440
But, in a number of these facilities, these jobs are anything but temporary. They are part of the business model.

00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:10.740
So oftentimes you have goods that are going to be sold by a retailer whether that be a traditional brick and mortar retailer

00:08:10.740 --> 00:08:18.620
or an online retailer. And those goods are moved through a distribution center or a warehouse here in New Jersey.

00:08:18.620 --> 00:08:27.630
Sometimes that warehouse is owned by that retailer, but more often than not, it's owned and operated by a third-party logistics firm.

00:08:27.630 --> 00:08:38.010
And they are often private companies that have a contract with the retailer to operate a distribution center to move their goods.

00:08:38.010 --> 00:08:46.100
Under them, you have staffing agency companies from which these third-party logistics firms draw their workers.

00:08:46.100 --> 00:08:53.400
And then all the way at the bottom, you have the workforce in places like here in New Brunswick, Elizabeth,

00:08:53.400 --> 00:09:04.210
another temp towns. When you think about the hierarchy of who has power in this employment relationship, moving goods,

00:09:04.210 --> 00:09:13.510
you sort of see a pyramid where at every level there is a significantly less degree of power.

00:09:13.510 --> 00:09:22.470
So we have this triangular system where you have the corporation, the Walmart or the Macy's or the, you know, Coca-Cola,

00:09:22.470 --> 00:09:34.780
whichever it is, who are hiring employment agencies to hire workers to produce or warehouse or to do whatever, you know,

00:09:34.780 --> 00:09:43.950
the job that needs to be done. But the circumstances under which this work occurs is one that they want to say, you know,

00:09:43.950 --> 00:09:53.210
that they are not responsible for it. Because, it is the corporations, the big companies, the big retailers who essentially are

00:09:53.210 --> 00:10:02.560
encouraging temp agencies to compete with each other to take on these contracts. And so one way in which temp agencies

00:10:02.560 --> 00:10:11.190
can become attractive is by lowering their cost. And when they lower their cost, they pay the workers even less.

00:10:11.190 --> 00:10:21.660
So in this whole process, it is the worker who is paying for the profit of the temp agency, paying for the profit of the big corporation.

00:10:21.660 --> 00:10:27.330
But by distancing themselves away from the work, the retailers and the corporations essentially can say,

00:10:27.330 --> 00:10:30.330
“Oh, it's not our responsibility.
We have nothing to do with it.”

00:10:30.330 --> 00:10:37.130
They called it the sweating system, and you would have found this sort of thing in the garment industry where people did homework,

00:10:37.130 --> 00:10:45.310
and I'd be the guy who had bundles of sleeves that had to be sewn together. And my job was to go find, a mom and her kids

00:10:45.310 --> 00:10:51.980
who would sew those sleeves together for me, and I'd pay her so much for doing X number of sleeves. And then I'd bring them back

00:10:51.980 --> 00:10:56.730
to the contractor who gave me the sleeves, and he would take them back to the contractor who he got them from,

00:10:56.730 --> 00:11:02.200
who puts the coat together, and they go from there. Right? So there's this cascading way that work gets done,

00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:10.790
but it's also just a system that has the impact of grinding down the conditions of work and keeping the wages low.

00:11:10.790 --> 00:11:19.170
So you have the same kind of thing going on in warehousing and logistics. It's a contractor who works for a multinational corporation.

00:11:19.170 --> 00:11:26.510
The corporation hires the contractor who's going to move the goods for them. The contractor will get the deal from the multinational.

00:11:26.510 --> 00:11:32.560
Move X number of units for X number of dollars. And if you don't want the job, the multinational will say,

00:11:32.560 --> 00:11:37.440
“There's another contractor over there that will take the job if you don't want to do it.” So you take it, right.

00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:42.740
That contractor who's going to move the goods looks for warehouses, and they'll say to them

00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:46.080
“Here's the price. And if you don't want it, there's another warehouse that will do it for that.”

00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:52.250
And so it goes from there. And then the warehouse takes the job.  Then the warehouse goes to the temp agency and says,

00:11:52.250 --> 00:11:58.710
“I need X number of workers, and I'll pay you this much for those workers. And if you don't want to do it, I got another guy who will.”

00:11:58.710 --> 00:12:07.010
And so it's always about driving down conditions and wages. That's how the profit gets made. Minimizing costs. Right.

00:12:07.010 --> 00:12:15.730
The low, low prices that you pay at a Walmart, there's a reason it's the lowest price. It's because Walmart has the most power in terms

00:12:15.730 --> 00:12:23.780
of negotiating with every party that it contracts with to get that lower price. But when the contractor takes the lower bid that way,

00:12:23.780 --> 00:12:29.410
they have to go make their money. And so they're going to press down on the wages of the workers who work for them,

00:12:29.410 --> 00:12:34.540
or the wages of the party they contract with who will then go get the workers, who will do the same exact thing.

00:12:34.540 --> 00:12:41.340
And we end up with a situation where, a low wage temp agency is going to grind it out for fifty cents an hour, their profit

00:12:41.340 --> 00:12:47.760
after they supposedly pay the workers and pay all of the cost that they're responsible for as an employer.

00:12:47.760 --> 00:12:56.230
It is a broken system for the people in general. It is a broken system for the workers. But for the one percent at the top,

00:12:56.230 --> 00:13:01.230
this is exactly the way they want it to be. So for them,
it is anything but broken.

00:13:01.230 --> 00:13:07.530
The idea was to maximize profits, and so along the way you drive down the wages, and the best way to do that is to have a workforce

00:13:07.530 --> 00:13:15.960
that is going to be compliant and willing to accept whatever wage you offer. And that's why the immigrant workers came from Mexico.

00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:23.920
That's why the industry grew. And that's why the workforce experienced the kind of conditions that over time have actually

00:13:23.920 --> 00:13:31.470
declined. So we find ourselves now at a place where the
workforce is exposed to bad conditions. The pay's low.

00:13:31.470 --> 00:13:39.730
It’s minimum wage and workers are exposed to lots of
abuse along the way, including wage theft,

00:13:39.730 --> 00:13:47.910
workers comp that isn't paid. Wages that aren't paid.
It goes on from there.

00:13:53.200 --> 00:14:02.420
My number is Rafael. I am from Mexico.
I am sixty-six years old.

00:14:02.420 --> 00:14:10.550
I’ve been living here in the
United States for sixteen years.

00:14:10.550 --> 00:14:18.480
Since I came here from Mexico,
I’ve been living in the city of New Brunswick.

00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:24.570
I’ve been working for agencies in factories.

00:14:24.570 --> 00:14:30.870
Well, in taking the decision to come to the United States is,

00:14:30.870 --> 00:14:46.420
like the majority of immigrants look for the best way,
economically and also opportunities.

00:14:46.420 --> 00:14:55.810
We don’t come to take anything from anyone,
but let us cover our necessities.

00:14:55.810 --> 00:15:04.820
We have our necessities, our rent, services and our food.

00:15:04.820 --> 00:15:09.030
We look to cover for the need to work.

00:15:14.490 --> 00:15:24.460
Well, the situation with going into the agencies:
The agencies, one had to be there at the time they open.

00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:31.130
There are agencies that open at six in the morning
and others at five in the morning.

00:15:31.130 --> 00:15:40.180
In my particular situation when I was working in the
factory of doors and windows, I had to enter

00:15:40.180 --> 00:15:48.150
at five in the morning for a period of seven months
and get out at three thirty in the afternoon.

00:15:48.150 --> 00:15:55.530
So what happened is that I had to leave from here,
New Brunswick, at four thirty in the morning.

00:15:55.530 --> 00:16:05.500
I would leave at three thirty in the afternoon from there.
I’ll repeat myself, in order to support my children,

00:16:05.500 --> 00:16:11.880
I looked for a part-time [job] and I would
leave my part-time [job] at five in the afternoon.

00:16:11.880 --> 00:16:21.770
In a word, I had very little rest.
That’s how I was for six years.

00:16:21.770 --> 00:16:31.280
To work many years in a warehouse,
one hopes to have a better salary.

00:16:31.280 --> 00:16:44.210
But the main thing that drives us who work in
the warehouse is the need to have a job,

00:16:44.210 --> 00:16:50.670
to not be without work. That is the main
necessity that we all have at an agency.

00:16:50.670 --> 00:16:58.350
It is more stressful to not work for a day.

00:16:58.350 --> 00:17:08.360
As you see you know the places where the majority of the workers are Latinos and they are undocumented so far as the employer

00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:15.700
is concerned you know, these people have absolutely no civil rights. The workers who are undocumented are in a position

00:17:15.700 --> 00:17:23.790
where this might be their first entry job. This is the first job that they have been waiting for. And without realizing, you know,

00:17:23.790 --> 00:17:31.960
how precarious it might be, not only in terms of how little that they are paid, but also the hazards that they face.

00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:41.140
Yet they are forced to keep their mouth shut because they're afraid what's going to happen. Because anything is better than nothing.

00:17:41.140 --> 00:17:48.060
So, it's their legal status which essentially becomes their
biggest weakness, which is held against them.

00:17:48.060 --> 00:17:58.070
In the warehouse it's understood that if the worker standing in front of me is undocumented, and I tell that worker what to do,

00:17:58.070 --> 00:18:02.120
they're not going to question it. They're just going to do it.
That's how they're thinking is

00:18:02.120 --> 00:18:07.830
“We want people who are just going to do what we ask them to do. And we don't want any anything else.”

00:18:07.830 --> 00:18:12.380
“They’ll do what they are told, that's what we want.” And their experience was that,

00:18:12.380 --> 00:18:19.260
“Well if it's a worker who comes from somewhere in Mexico and they're hired out of some agency in New Brunswick,

00:18:19.260 --> 00:18:24.470
most of the time they're going to do exactly what we tell them to do” with the understanding that they're undocumented.

00:18:24.470 --> 00:18:29.900
That's also the way that the employers, though,
use it as leverage against the workers.

00:18:29.900 --> 00:18:37.400
Because at a certain point if a worker is stepping out of line, the agency can say, “Hey, look, man, I know you're not documented”

00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:45.330
quietly. And then the worker can either get back in line and do what they're supposed to do or, more likely, it’s the case that they'll suffer

00:18:45.330 --> 00:18:53.500
job loss. But you know, there have been occasions
and workers are afraid and they have reasons to be afraid.

00:18:53.500 --> 00:19:03.680
Well, I am from Oaxaca, [Mexico].
It’s been ten years since I came to this country.

00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:13.610
Well, one time I was working for an agency
and I was working there but it was for,

00:19:13.610 --> 00:19:22.110
how do you call it? It was for clothes and
there were boxes, very heavy boxes.

00:19:22.110 --> 00:19:28.410
And because of that my hips got bad because
there were jeans in the boxes,

00:19:28.410 --> 00:19:35.590
there were many boxes, they were big, and I had to pick them up.

00:19:35.590 --> 00:19:45.100
When I told the lady, the manager, that I got hurt,
she didn’t tell me anything. She said I was fine.

00:19:45.100 --> 00:19:49.560
She told me to do other things until the day ended.
And on the next day,

00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:56.360
they put me on the list that they didn’t want me..
That’s what they do.

00:19:56.360 --> 00:20:03.660
When you think about a place like New Brunswick, there were other communities that look a lot like New Brunswick actually larger.

00:20:03.660 --> 00:20:12.160
For example Elizabeth, another example would be Paterson, Passaic, Union City. When you look at a census map,

00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:20.510
you could see, high concentrations of where Latino workers lived. And the interesting thing is where you find the high concentration of

00:20:20.510 --> 00:20:29.890
Latinos, you also find lots of temp agencies who are recruiting people to go to work primarily in those warehouses and, or in light

00:20:29.890 --> 00:20:38.360
industrial manufacturing facilities. So, in all of those places where the immigrants are, you're going to find temp agencies,

00:20:38.360 --> 00:20:45.910
and it's almost like, the mapping of it, it's like a picket fence. You'll see the higher concentration of workers in the community,

00:20:45.910 --> 00:20:51.410
and then you'll see all the agencies on another map, a Google map, you can see where they just sort of surround it like a fence.

00:20:51.410 --> 00:20:54.960
And it looks like what it is.
They're temp towns.

00:20:54.960 --> 00:21:01.840
In particular the temp agencies that have set up shop here in New Brunswick, Elizabeth, Perth Amboy, they have set up shop

00:21:01.840 --> 00:21:07.640
basically where there are Latino immigrant workers. And unfortunately, the ones in this area are some of the

00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:16.190
more low road ones. So temp agencies are also being pushed from the top as well. And it's not like they can always provide

00:21:16.190 --> 00:21:22.730
the best conditions either, because they're getting this pressure from the top. Ones that want to do the wrong thing, they'll cheat.

00:21:22.730 --> 00:21:28.620
They'll not pay everyone's wages. They will have missing hours here and there. And they're doing that to survive as well. Right.

00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:34.540
And it's tough for an agency that wants to do the right thing to get ahead because they're also part of that market. Right.

00:21:34.540 --> 00:21:38.710
So we need the bad actors to improve or disappear.

00:21:38.710 --> 00:21:49.050
Agency workers are generally paid less than their direct hire counterparts, albeit their job responsibilities are not very different.

00:21:49.050 --> 00:21:55.390
This sector is, it doesn't pay wages and benefits
that would allow someone to support a family.

00:21:55.390 --> 00:22:06.700
In my research, I found that 43% of staffing agency workers who had children, that their families were below the poverty line.

00:22:06.700 --> 00:22:13.830
And even more families with children were below the self-sufficiency standard, which is a moralistic standard.

00:22:13.830 --> 00:22:22.960
These jobs are perma-temp jobs, as we sometimes call them. These are not jobs where you scale up before Christmas

00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:30.300
in the gift giving season and then you know folks who prove themselves are hired into full time positions with the company.

00:22:30.300 --> 00:22:38.270
These are workforces that make up
the backbone of the warehouses where they work.

00:22:38.270 --> 00:22:45.780
What [the people] don’t know is
that when somebody gets to work,

00:22:45.780 --> 00:22:50.910
[the people] don’t know how we work,
they don’t know how we’re working.

00:22:50.910 --> 00:22:57.120
Because not even the bosses,
they don’t even know how we’re working.

00:22:57.120 --> 00:23:02.080
They don’t know what it takes to get the products out for them.

00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:10.630
And there’s many people that say when they
get to the stores “Oh, this product.”

00:23:10.630 --> 00:23:15.010
They don’t know exactly how that product got to that store.

00:23:15.010 --> 00:23:23.860
That product got there because many people
were injured, paid poorly, humiliated a lot.

00:23:23.860 --> 00:23:34.450
And many things that cannot be described
because of awful things that have happened.

00:23:34.450 --> 00:23:42.080
Many times people stay quiet in fear of,
because one might be illegal in this country,

00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:47.750
they think immigration might be
called on them and have them deported.

00:23:47.750 --> 00:23:52.720
That is why people don’t speak up.
Sometimes there is a lot of abuse,

00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:57.310
and the person stays quiet. They don’t
speak about the problem one might have,

00:23:57.310 --> 00:24:01.980
or the problems that are in that company
because of being sacred or having fear.

00:24:01.980 --> 00:24:06.110
Or, many times they threaten you, the agencies themselves.

00:24:06.110 --> 00:24:15.870
Because they know the person has that fear,
one doesn’t speak up; one always stays quiet.

00:24:15.870 --> 00:24:21.500
In other words, they don’t respect the person.
They look at the person like they aren’t anything,

00:24:21.500 --> 00:24:28.800
just a working machine, nothing more.
And that affects me, everyone,

00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:39.260
because they humiliate and don’t
give you the respect that you deserve.

00:24:39.260 --> 00:24:45.850
They treat you like a working machine.

00:24:50.190 --> 00:25:09.840
The people united will not be defeated.
The people united will not be defeated.

00:25:09.840 --> 00:25:26.480
We have power. We have power. We have power.

00:25:29.860 --> 00:25:36.660
In structuring the warehousing logistics industry where you have the firms with market power and then you have the staffing

00:25:36.660 --> 00:25:42.990
agencies and the reliance on perma-temps,
that's designed to lower standards across the board.

00:25:42.990 --> 00:25:50.210
New labor was founded pretty much in response to the transformation of the logistics industry here in New Jersey

00:25:50.210 --> 00:26:01.260
and the rise of these staffing agencies. And they have really driven forward the agenda and have made significant progress.

00:26:01.260 --> 00:26:07.190
Whether it be really cutting down the incidents of blatant wage theft

00:26:07.190 --> 00:26:12.730
and even just helping workers realize that they have rights,
and giving them a voice.

00:26:12.730 --> 00:26:17.030
The idea of that craft model of union was something
we had in our heads, but we didn't know where to start.

00:26:17.030 --> 00:26:26.120
And so, I suggested to Richie that he talk to Lou because Lou had done this little preliminary work with this, little research project

00:26:26.120 --> 00:26:34.050
that he did. And the two of them struck up a friendship.
And the next thing I knew, Lou was a temp worker out of

00:26:34.050 --> 00:26:40.340
New Brunswick temp agencies. And because he knew some Spanish, at the time, they hired him.

00:26:40.340 --> 00:26:48.980
He became, I guess he would be classified as our first union salt if you will. A salt is somebody who goes out on the job and tries

00:26:48.980 --> 00:26:55.820
to make a determination of what's going on there, try to identify the leaders in that workplace. And from there you try to think in terms of

00:26:55.820 --> 00:27:01.360
how do you organize the workforce, organize something
that the workers would see in their best interest.

00:27:01.360 --> 00:27:08.040
This went on for about a year, and Lou kept coming to us on a weekly basis. And we’d say, “So what did you learn this week?”

00:27:08.040 --> 00:27:11.750
and he’d tell us everything he learned.
“And so what do the workers want?” and he’s say,

00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:15.460
“Well, the thing they really want is to learn how to speak English.”  And then we say, “Okay, so what else?”

00:27:15.460 --> 00:27:19.760
And there would be other stuff and every week there would be something else. But every week Lou would say,

00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:26.680
“Well, they really want to learn how to speak English.” And at one point, out of almost total frustration, we just said,

00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:35.110
“Lou, teach them English.” And he said, “What?” and we said “Teach them English. Start a class.” And that's what he did.

00:27:35.110 --> 00:27:40.320
I actually started kind of working undercover at some of the temp agencies here in New Brunswick to get a lay of the land

00:27:40.320 --> 00:27:47.910
to see what people were interested in. And the background of some of the other people that helped start the organization was around

00:27:47.910 --> 00:27:53.500
workplace health and safety. Right. But when talking to people, you know, we put them through some trainings trainings that were

00:27:53.500 --> 00:28:00.300
in English, it's kind of hard to identify, you know, enough English speakers who were fluent enough to be able to participate there.

00:28:00.300 --> 00:28:06.680
Rather, it wasn't that as much as wanting to learn English. So the organization was founded around that, a place where

00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:12.890
people could learn English. And I invited about thirty people, and maybe one person showed up and I was terrified to be doing

00:28:12.890 --> 00:28:17.320
an English class with this woman because I'd never done
an English class in my life at all.

00:28:17.320 --> 00:28:25.950
We were renting the second and third floor of a big old house on Livingston Avenue. And, on the third floor was the attic space

00:28:25.950 --> 00:28:35.290
that we had. And Lou ran his first ESL classes out of that,
out of that space. And the first class, one person showed up,

00:28:35.290 --> 00:28:42.880
and the second class, two people showed up, and it went from there. And by the end of year one of Lou doing the ESL classes

00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:50.470
we had the beginnings of New Labor. And people were paying dues to be members of this thing we were calling New Labor,

00:28:50.470 --> 00:28:57.150
and they were primarily just getting training and education out of it. And based on that, we set out to start writing

00:28:57.150 --> 00:29:01.690
health and safety grants that were going to be
targeted to training temp workers.

00:29:01.690 --> 00:29:07.660
And, that's how we got the resources
to get this thing going in the in the in the beginning.

00:29:07.660 --> 00:29:13.870
It was learning kind of what people wanted to know, right? Not just, the grammar that the boy is running, but rather, you know,

00:29:13.870 --> 00:29:20.090
when will you pay me types of things, how to, you know, survive in the job, how to survive in a clinic and what have you?

00:29:20.090 --> 00:29:25.840
From the first person who came, you know, she invited other people as well. And as we say “poco a poco, little by little,”

00:29:25.840 --> 00:29:30.180
we began to grow. Right? So it was kind of word of mouth and building relationships with people.

00:29:30.180 --> 00:29:35.940
We've always been a relationship-based organization. So much that people call us like a second home or a second family. Right.

00:29:35.940 --> 00:29:42.650
And in doing so, when people come here to want to learn English and get ahead in that way, they're also seeing they have

00:29:42.650 --> 00:29:48.240
other things in common besides that. Right. That they have the same employers and oftentimes they might be abusing them

00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:55.250
by not paying them in full, not giving them respect or what have you. So, it's also been a space where people can

00:29:55.250 --> 00:29:59.580
talk about those issues and create collective plans to try and confront them and win.

00:29:59.580 --> 00:30:08.180
It is very important for the workers to learn basic
English so that they can not only communicate with

00:30:08.180 --> 00:30:21.940
with their coworkers but also the bosses or employers.
Also, it’s very important to avoid accidents.

00:30:21.940 --> 00:30:29.820
Many times the labels on the
chemical products are written in English.

00:30:29.820 --> 00:30:38.830
If the person doesn’t know how to read English,
they don’t know the risks associated with the product

00:30:38.830 --> 00:30:44.340
So, that’s why the English classes were developed in New Labor.

00:30:44.340 --> 00:30:53.220
I found out about New Labor from a
babysitter who was watching my son.

00:30:53.220 --> 00:31:03.820
I came here to learn basic English and then they
informed me that they were doing warehouse training.

00:31:03.820 --> 00:31:12.070
Since I’ve always worked in factories,
I wanted to get ahead and I didn’t know

00:31:12.070 --> 00:31:19.330
what kind of training was necessary to work in
factories and the risks one takes doing so.

00:31:19.330 --> 00:31:25.000
I didn’t know about health and safety so I trained here.

00:31:25.500 --> 00:31:35.600
No agencies give trainings on safety, health, no quality trainings.

00:31:35.600 --> 00:31:45.400
They just demand quality without giving trainings.
With machines it’s, it’s,

00:31:45.400 --> 00:31:57.700
with machinery that is very old, old models.
So instead the worker literally has to take care of himself.

00:31:57.700 --> 00:32:04.330
And the most important thing, the agencies and
the factories don’t give out protective equipment.

00:32:04.330 --> 00:32:10.630
Thanks to New Labor, they’ve been training some people.

00:32:10.630 --> 00:32:19.470
But there are many more that need
to be aware of these types of trainings.

00:32:19.470 --> 00:32:27.520
New Labor’s first initiative was teaching English as a second language to Spanish speaking temp workers in New Brunswick.

00:32:27.520 --> 00:32:34.820
While teaching these classes, the organization learned about dangerous working conditions and developed health and safety

00:32:34.820 --> 00:32:43.080
for warehouse work.  As New Labor expanded into Newark and Lakewood, they developed health and safety trainings around

00:32:43.080 --> 00:32:50.880
construction, janitorial, and domestic work. The types of jobs prevalent in the Hispanic communities within these towns.

00:32:59.810 --> 00:33:07.520
I think another tell-tale example of where you can tell whether a staffing agency is a low road one or whether it's one that actually

00:33:07.520 --> 00:33:16.990
takes its responsibility seriously, is with respect to health and safety training. You have low road agencies that could care less about

00:33:16.990 --> 00:33:27.630
health and safety, that will hire someone at six thirty in the morning, stick them in a van at six forty-five without a seatbelt, drop them off

00:33:27.630 --> 00:33:36.510
at seven at an address that they don't know. And have them working at seven zero one in a facility where they've never been

00:33:36.510 --> 00:33:44.930
before without any sort of orientation about hazards or safe practices. “Aquí y Ahora”, which is sort of a Twenty Twenty

00:33:44.930 --> 00:33:53.150
or Sixty Minutes type program on Univision did an undercover report here in New Brunswick, where they sent a correspondent

00:33:53.150 --> 00:34:01.370
with a hidden camera to contract employment at one of the New Brunswick staffing agencies. And when it came to health and safety,

00:34:01.370 --> 00:34:08.540
he was presented papers in English, even thought the conversation up to that point was in Spanish, and just asked to sign them.

00:34:08.540 --> 00:34:17.130
And based on what he could tell, they were papers related to health and safety training where he was signing, affirming that he had

00:34:17.130 --> 00:34:25.140
received health and safety training, that he obviously did not receive. Minutes later, he was on a van. He was taken to a

00:34:25.140 --> 00:34:33.610
warehouse facility and was put on a worksite where there were tons of goods stored overhead, where there were conveyor belts

00:34:33.610 --> 00:34:43.160
and other types of machinery. And he had not received any training from the agency or from the supervisor charged with supervising

00:34:43.160 --> 00:34:49.830
him at the site. This was shocking to the reporters from
Aquí y Ahora”, but not shocking for us

00:34:49.830 --> 00:34:54.750
who are familiar with the industry, because this happens every day.

00:34:54.750 --> 00:35:01.640
A lot of the workers are injured guess what, on their first day.
The first day they go in because no training.

00:35:01.640 --> 00:35:07.770
They're not trained, and think about the kind of jobs they are going into. They're going into jobs, for example, you know,

00:35:07.770 --> 00:35:14.440
bottling factories, waste management, even where they have to work with dangerous chemicals. But a lot of the workers

00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:22.570
are going in without the training so they are vulnerable.
They get hurt and they're intimidated into not speaking up.

00:35:22.570 --> 00:35:32.250
Three workers of On Target Staffing lost their lives in Englewood Cliffs when they were in a traffic accident coming back in the van

00:35:32.250 --> 00:35:39.470
from the work where they were assigned by On Target. The negligence of these agencies has grave impacts on the lives

00:35:39.470 --> 00:35:46.140
of the workers. Transportation is just one of the ways in which our lives are put at risk by these negligent parties.

00:35:46.140 --> 00:35:52.480
In 2019, a co-worker of mine, Edilberto Caicedo,
lost his life while working in a warehouse.

00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:58.320
He worked for an agency that was not licensed
and was not equipped to do this type of work.

00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:05.410
People die daily. I had to work in a
warehouse where a man fell from the third rack.

00:36:05.410 --> 00:36:13.370
He fell, and we never knew of him again.
Everyone would “Shh, shh, move, move,

00:36:13.370 --> 00:36:23.010
go over there.” And the man fell, people
said that he worked ten to fifteen years there.

00:36:23.010 --> 00:36:27.560
One bad experience was when I worked
for an agency that’s called Professional.

00:36:27.560 --> 00:36:39.320
It’s a place that they call “the pill.” It was when a lady and I were putting pills in bottles. There was a lot of dust.

00:36:39.320 --> 00:36:43.740
And there was a lady who had asthma.
And the supervisor, I told her,

00:36:43.740 --> 00:36:48.660
“Take her out of the room because she couldn’t breathe.”
And the supervisor told her,

00:36:48.660 --> 00:36:52.250
“No, you can stay. You have to stay until the end of the day.”

00:36:52.250 --> 00:36:57.130
When we were leaving, the lady fainted in the
middle of the hallway. She had a heart attack.

00:36:57.130 --> 00:37:05.680
So, I told her to call an ambulance and the
supervisor didn’t want to call an ambulance.

00:37:05.680 --> 00:37:10.510
She didn’t want to call because she had to let
the bosses know first. And I told her,

00:37:10.510 --> 00:37:15.900
“Let your bosses know that the lady died.”
So she said, “No you can’t call.”

00:37:15.900 --> 00:37:23.240
I replied, “Yes, I’m going to call, I don’t care. Fire me.” I kept working. It was a bad experience because us, being Hispanics,

00:37:23.240 --> 00:37:26.780
we can see somebody that’s dying
and we aren’t capable of helping them.

00:37:26.780 --> 00:37:32.870
She had a heart attack. She was in the hospital for fifteen days.

00:37:45.300 --> 00:37:51.430
When we started New Labor, to the extent that we were going to focus on health and safety training, we started to work and think

00:37:51.430 --> 00:37:57.770
more closely about how we could get training money to do the training, which I should add, was totally based on

00:37:57.770 --> 00:38:05.110
the small group activity method called SCAM and this very participatory model. And so we were thinking that we would

00:38:05.110 --> 00:38:11.450
incorporate that model into New Labor, because we wanted to use it as a way to give people the opportunity to work together

00:38:11.450 --> 00:38:17.420
to solve their own problems together, and using this participatory model made total sense in that regard.

00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:25.630
And we were thinking long term about organizing workers, and that was the best way to maximize education and training was through

00:38:25.630 --> 00:38:31.760
a model where people got to solve problems working together. So the curriculum that we developed with Rutgers at the time

00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:38.890
was all based on workers’ experiences. We would form committees of workers to identify what their problems were,

00:38:38.890 --> 00:38:44.150
and then try to connect that to the technical information that they might need to solve their health and safety problems at work.

00:38:44.150 --> 00:38:49.820
And using the small group activity method,
where workers train other workers to be trainers it becomes

00:38:49.820 --> 00:38:54.990
it becomes a peer-based model where people
can do it without experts in the room. Right.

00:38:54.990 --> 00:38:59.540
So the Consejo, the worker council that we
hold here in New Labor, is held every other week.

00:38:59.540 --> 00:39:06.760
It is run by members that have been trained to run it.
So basically they go out and talk to people in the community

00:39:06.760 --> 00:39:13.890
and if there are issues happening to them in their workplace
be it wage staff, lack of respect, or unsafe working conditions

00:39:13.890 --> 00:39:20.730
we invite them to come to the Consejo meeting. And as a group, so members, people in the community, and the members

00:39:20.730 --> 00:39:26.230
leading the discussion, they listen to the problem,
they create a plan of action to try and solve that problem

00:39:26.230 --> 00:39:32.620
from step one to step two and step three.  Members and staff identify leaders within the organization.

00:39:32.620 --> 00:39:36.950
And those are people that have been participating
in different meetings, in classes and other trainings

00:39:36.950 --> 00:39:44.210
and we invite them to participate in the Train-the-Trainer program. And we explain that they're being recognized as leaders,

00:39:44.210 --> 00:39:50.670
and we're not just inviting any old person to participate. Through these Train-the-Trainer programs, workers are learning

00:39:50.670 --> 00:39:59.270
not just their rights, or technical information, but also
how to work together as a team, how to speak in public,

00:39:59.270 --> 00:40:04.650
how to critically think and critically assess the situations that are given to them. Right. So they usually are based on

00:40:04.650 --> 00:40:12.360
real life situations using technical fact sheets. But at the same time, there's a commitment after that to either facilitate other classes

00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:17.490
for their peers and other people in the community.
But also, it's a way to build leaders

00:40:17.490 --> 00:40:21.120
and it's a way to build you know organizers in a sense, as well.

00:40:21.120 --> 00:40:35.300
What we try to convey to the leaders when they participate in the Train-the-Trainer [program] is to learn communication techniques

00:40:35.300 --> 00:40:43.190
and connect with others in the community, and as we do so,
we try to make them aware of the risks in their jobs

00:40:43.190 --> 00:40:49.530
and how they can convey this knowledge through
mentorship and teach others about workplace hazards.

00:40:49.530 --> 00:40:59.290
We do it a lot through the English classes, which is our first step for people when they arrive and start to get involved in the organization

00:40:59.290 --> 00:41:08.040
and we start noticing a certain interest in exposing
or sharing what is happening to them in their jobs.

00:41:08.040 --> 00:41:13.630
So one way or another, we already begin to identify them
as concerned about their health and their safety.

00:41:13.630 --> 00:41:26.600
So we start by giving them a health and safety training, then move them along, step by step to finally get them in a Train-the-Trainer

00:41:26.600 --> 00:41:37.910
So we’re supporting them so that they develop skills that they may have but haven’t trained or haven’t identified, and so that’s where

00:41:37.910 --> 00:41:51.630
we begin to awaken the leadership that they really have inside, which maybe they haven’t developed we [help them] achieve that.

00:41:51.630 --> 00:41:57.090
And it’s more like learning to facilitate, right?
It’s not teaching but rather facilitating

00:41:57.090 --> 00:42:03.390
the learning of others through mentorship
and through work practices.

00:42:03.390 --> 00:42:11.150
So through Train-the-Trainer, we’ve already awakened that interest in them, in telling others what’s going on in their own workplaces.

00:42:11.150 --> 00:42:18.570
And, because they are trainers, since they have been trained previously, and they’ve cultivated a culture of safety,

00:42:18.570 --> 00:42:25.250
that allows them to have that passion to convey that to others.
So they become mentors and in doing so,

00:42:25.250 --> 00:42:32.630
they become a very long-term chain of benefits to the community.

00:42:32.630 --> 00:42:42.300
It’s called Train-the-Trainer. When you come in
for a training you’ll see we use a method called SCAM,

00:42:42.300 --> 00:42:50.190
which consists of small groups of people
who participate in an exercise.

00:42:50.190 --> 00:43:02.700
We, as instructors, hand out the training exercise
then we go over the subject matter with them.

00:43:02.700 --> 00:43:11.630
Each person in each of the small groups gets a
chance to stand up front and be the “trainer.”

00:43:11.630 --> 00:43:19.630
It’s a little difficult at first, but little by little
they start to learn how to speak in public.

00:43:19.630 --> 00:43:29.520
This method has been very successful for us here
in New Labor as I know several members that

00:43:29.520 --> 00:43:36.070
wouldn’t even participate and now they’re some of our best trainers.

00:43:36.070 --> 00:43:42.780
This is how they end up learning the most as they
are sharing their personal experiences with one another.

00:43:42.780 --> 00:43:47.330
This helps them build the confidence
necessary to share an issue where someone

00:43:47.330 --> 00:43:50.960
else might say, “I thought I was the only one with that problem.”

00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:59.340
This method helps them open up and realize they
are not alone, there are risks in every workplace.

00:43:59.340 --> 00:44:07.640
This method helps them to find the best way
to resolve an issue as a group on the jobsite,

00:44:07.640 --> 00:44:14.480
just like they do here at this table.
So when they’re on the job and they face

00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:20.780
a safety issue they can learn to solve it the best way possible.

00:44:20.780 --> 00:44:28.200
The former executive director here Marien Casillas Pabellon, she was very much engaged in leadership development.

00:44:28.200 --> 00:44:33.620
And when she got here, she embraced this training methodology in the context of health and safety.

00:44:33.620 --> 00:44:40.300
It was about training guys who we trained as trainers initially to go the next step. And those guys actually became the ones who are

00:44:40.300 --> 00:44:50.930
qualified to be OSHA trainers. And they deliver this OSHA ten-hour training program, to construction workers throughout

00:44:50.930 --> 00:44:56.980
northern and central New Jersey. So that was sort of like another step along the path to them becoming these safety liaisons

00:44:56.980 --> 00:45:04.200
And what they do now is on jobsites, in situations where they have a positive rapport with contractors, they make suggestions

00:45:04.200 --> 00:45:09.490
to contractors about how to make the job safer.
And in a lot of cases, the contractors will do it.

00:45:09.490 --> 00:45:17.880
In cases where they don't the workers, our safety liaisons, will inform the other workers on the jobsite that there's a safety

00:45:17.880 --> 00:45:27.550
problem. And it depends, but in some situations we have filed OSHA complaints, and other situations there have been job actions

00:45:27.550 --> 00:45:36.310
where the workers stopped working until they got some very basic PPE equipment like dust masks, gloves, goggles, that kind of stuff.

00:45:36.310 --> 00:45:42.400
It's been a very successful program, but it's all based
on that training methodology, or at least it grew out of that.

00:45:42.400 --> 00:45:49.160
OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is in charge of creating regulations for workplace health and safety

00:45:49.160 --> 00:45:55.210
and enforcing them for many different kinds of employers. Their funding is very low.

00:45:55.210 --> 00:46:01.250
So they don't have enough funding to create an adequate supply
of investigators to be at every single workplace.

00:46:01.250 --> 00:46:06.630
It would take basically one hundred plus years for them to do one inspection at every single worksite.

00:46:06.630 --> 00:46:11.760
So what we've done is created, you know, safety liaisons
to be able to identify hazards in the workplace.

00:46:11.760 --> 00:46:18.520
Take action right there to try and correct them, and if not get in contact with OSHA to make sure that those problems

00:46:18.520 --> 00:46:23.320
are addressed through a formal complaint. Right. And they're the ones that have initiated meetings with OSHA to create that

00:46:23.320 --> 00:46:28.820
relationship with them. So they understand that these are people that have been trained. It's not just Joe Schmo on the street making

00:46:28.820 --> 00:46:34.790
a complaint, but rather these are people that are trained and, therefore should be taking a higher level of priority. Right.

00:46:34.790 --> 00:46:51.350
My name is Diego. The basic functions that I do is to look
for people that want to participate in the campaigns of New Labor.

00:46:51.350 --> 00:46:56.430
And I also talk to the day laborers at all the
stops at the corners where they all get together

00:46:56.430 --> 00:47:01.900
in central or northern New Jersey. So we have determined
that there would be about fifteen to eighteen

00:47:01.900 --> 00:47:07.990
stops of a concentration of workers.
And my activities are also to visit them in the mornings

00:47:07.990 --> 00:47:13.530
in the hours before they go to work between six,
eight or nine in the morning.

00:47:13.530 --> 00:47:18.410
So, what we do when we get to the stops with the day laborers

00:47:18.410 --> 00:47:23.880
we present ourselves as members of New Labor,

00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:33.550
and we have a grant for us to be able to be
the bridge between OSHA and the workers.

00:47:33.550 --> 00:47:39.560
And we give them the information between health and safety
and different themes that are related to construction.

00:47:39.560 --> 00:47:46.530
It could be a theme like ladders or scaffolding,
protection against falling,

00:47:46.530 --> 00:47:51.110
protection with handling chemicals,
or the use of personal protective equipment.

00:47:51.110 --> 00:47:59.200
Also, what I’ve seen is that the day laborers
are the ones that are the most helpless.

00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:03.210
The ones that have the least amount of
protection and the less help that they have.

00:48:03.210 --> 00:48:11.510
So, I think that this project, for example, safety,
construction workers, day laborers

00:48:11.510 --> 00:48:17.310
is very important because there isn’t
a person that approaches them.

00:48:17.310 --> 00:48:29.990
Well, here in a manner of ten hours, two days, you’ve already learned the most basic parts of working in construction.

00:48:29.990 --> 00:48:38.660
There are many people working in construction
going up ladders carrying heavy loads on their

00:48:38.660 --> 00:48:45.000
shoulders when they should not be doing so.
There are people working scaffolding when

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:50.710
scaffolds are only to be used by trained and licensed individuals;
here, we teach them not to do these things.

00:48:50.710 --> 00:49:00.470
Finding risks is a basic component of the job. We are basically teaching them to take some initiative and in this way,

00:49:00.470 --> 00:49:10.400
take less risk of an accident happening that
could have if they had not taken this course.

00:49:10.400 --> 00:49:20.490
Everything we teach in these classes we also have exercises and show examples of. For example, we have ladders that we use

00:49:20.490 --> 00:49:29.170
to show how to correctly use them. We have a scaled down scaffold here that we get on and show them what kinds

00:49:29.170 --> 00:49:33.420
of problems they may face with scaffolding
so that they can identify them.

00:49:33.420 --> 00:49:38.180
We have an electrical panel that we use
when we do our electrician’s course.

00:49:38.180 --> 00:49:43.270
We have as many things possible to make the courses as practical as possible so that they can learn more.

00:49:43.270 --> 00:49:48.440
We want to teach everyone how to keep a
safe and secure workplace and sometimes

00:49:48.440 --> 00:49:59.830
when a dangerous situation is over we can come together as
a group and try to avoid a similar occurrence in the future.

00:49:59.830 --> 00:50:08.250
Leadership development and health and safety go hand in hand at New Labor. To spread the word about dangerous working

00:50:08.250 --> 00:50:15.170
conditions, New Labor identifies members who are interested in helping their coworkers and transforms them into leaders

00:50:15.170 --> 00:50:21.560
through the Train-the-Trainer program. These members
refine their communication skills and build confidence

00:50:21.560 --> 00:50:27.480
by facilitating health and safety information
to others so accidents can be prevented.

00:50:27.480 --> 00:50:32.650
This creates a cycle of empowering
members to identify dangers at work,

00:50:32.650 --> 00:50:38.490
support others, and become leaders at the
organization and on the jobsite.

00:50:38.490 --> 00:50:44.540
My name is Reina. I am a member, a leader
of the organization New Labor in Lakewood.

00:50:44.540 --> 00:50:50.540
Chemicals, I found out they were bad for you here in New Labor.

00:50:50.540 --> 00:50:59.130
This was one of the first things that I learned
when I came here for some training.

00:50:59.130 --> 00:51:07.430
About all this, I did not know about this,
and they were giving trainings about chemicals.

00:51:07.430 --> 00:51:18.610
And they trained me with OSHA. It tells you how
not to combine them, for example ammonia and bleach.

00:51:18.610 --> 00:51:27.160
Lots of people use those to clean bathrooms and
when they’re combined they instantly give off

00:51:27.160 --> 00:51:36.300
a very strong smell, but worse than that is
what’s happening to your body from the inside.

00:51:36.300 --> 00:51:44.600
It was here in New Labor that I learned that these chemicals are very dangerous and the effects that they have on our bodies.

00:51:44.600 --> 00:51:51.850
That’s why now I know that asthma, arthritis,
and all these things are the cause of using all

00:51:51.850 --> 00:51:59.530
these chemicals. We’re breathing in all these vapors,
especially when combined with hot water

00:51:59.530 --> 00:52:11.960
such as Windex. When we clean windows,
it falls all over you, in your hair, skin and hands.

00:52:11.960 --> 00:52:18.260
And I think that it was that I spent so much
time working without gloves that now

00:52:18.260 --> 00:52:23.970
I suffer from pain in my fingers, and it’s worse in my
right hand which is the one I use the most.

00:52:23.970 --> 00:52:35.860
It was from that day forward that I asked for gloves
and refused to use chemicals that could harm me.

00:52:35.860 --> 00:52:45.370
Before being a participant here in New Labor,
I worked cleaning schools as a janitor.

00:52:45.370 --> 00:52:53.870
But something that I’ve learned through
experiences working in those schools is that

00:52:53.870 --> 00:53:05.550
the majority of us are cleaning with chemicals.
We don’t have the foresight to use protection.

00:53:05.550 --> 00:53:15.770
We use the chemicals directly, we can feel or touch, I remember it would touch my skin or my hands and my hands would get burns.

00:53:15.770 --> 00:53:24.700
The nails would break off completely.
It was because of strong chemical products.

00:53:24.700 --> 00:53:30.490
When I learned about health and safety through New Labor,
I began to be more conscious

00:53:30.490 --> 00:53:39.250
as to how we were working. And what I at least did was,
to try to protect myself by using gloves

00:53:39.250 --> 00:53:49.140
or try to use something to… If I were going to have prolonged exposure to a chemical product,

00:53:49.140 --> 00:53:57.940
I would try for there to be ventilation,
so that the vapors that you can smell can escape.

00:53:57.940 --> 00:54:03.280
Lot’s of people come here and tell me that they
don’t give them gloves, they don’t give us lunch.

00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:09.200
And I always tell them that they won’t
come to you and tell you what you need,

00:54:09.200 --> 00:54:16.920
you need to go and tell them what you need to work with.
This is what we teach here.

00:54:20.590 --> 00:54:27.380
At New Labor, you know, we have different populations at each center in terms of, focus of priority in terms of campaigns.

00:54:27.380 --> 00:54:33.850
In New Brunswick, a lot of the workers that have come in work in warehousing or in temp agencies at warehouses,

00:54:33.850 --> 00:54:38.560
or at some point have. So basically,
everyone's connected to that local labor market.

00:54:38.560 --> 00:54:42.480
The efforts here have been focused on
improving those conditions for temp workers.

00:54:42.480 --> 00:54:49.070
In Newark many of our members initially come in there as construction workers, so they're there for OSHA trainings.

00:54:49.070 --> 00:54:55.160
But once they get involved, they also see the other common problem that happens a lot is wage theft. So, unsafe working

00:54:55.160 --> 00:55:02.960
conditions a lot of times go hand in hand with unpaid wages.
So a lot of those leaders that we've trained through there

00:55:02.960 --> 00:55:08.840
got involved in an effort to pass an anti-wage theft ordinance in Newark. So they're the ones again that went knocking on doors.

00:55:08.840 --> 00:55:15.390
The ones that gained almost a thousand signatures of support. The ones that trained other members to give testimony to city council.

00:55:15.390 --> 00:55:21.940
And in the end, you know, city council there voted unanimously, to support an anti-wage theft ordinance.

00:55:21.940 --> 00:55:28.610
So, it's an ongoing effort in Newark to enforce that ordinance and having the affected people and the leaders involved in that process.

00:55:28.610 --> 00:55:33.620
And from there, actually, the members have
pushed for a statewide bill as well.

00:55:33.620 --> 00:55:39.370
At our Lakewood center the major campaign there to improve conditions for domestic workers. So, six days a week, workers are

00:55:39.370 --> 00:55:44.960
cleaning multiple houses, not just one. And it's more than that. Sometimes it's changing light bulbs, cleaning cars.

00:55:44.960 --> 00:55:49.760
The conditions are not always the best. Sometimes,
the workers are forced to clean from their knees

00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:55.470
So the workers came together to create a bill of rights, right?
To be respected on the local level,

00:55:55.470 --> 00:56:00.390
that they're going to enforce themselves. Right?
A right to food, water, break, basic things.

00:56:00.390 --> 00:56:04.110
But they're the ones that came up with the terms,
and they're the ones that are enforcing it.

00:56:04.110 --> 00:56:09.530
So to circle back, they have also participated in our Train-the-Trainer programs because the skills they learned there,

00:56:09.530 --> 00:56:15.740
even if it might not be the same industry,
can be replicated in those efforts as well.

00:56:15.740 --> 00:56:24.080
In our Domestic Workers’ campaign, we created what is
the bill of rights. “Carta de Derechos” is what we call it.

00:56:24.080 --> 00:56:34.300
Well, for us to get to those ten points
was a process that took us six years.

00:56:34.300 --> 00:56:45.270
A small poll was taken and we asked the domestic workers the problems they had at work; the biggest problems that they had.

00:56:45.270 --> 00:56:54.610
The bill was approved through the township, through the
mayor and the advisors of the municipality of Lakewood.

00:56:54.610 --> 00:57:00.870
They gave us support and were in accordance
with those points that we were asking for.

00:57:00.870 --> 00:57:06.130
The bill of rights we have is symbolic but it has worked.

00:57:06.130 --> 00:57:12.260
It’s worked for those who have used it with an
increase in pay and realistic work schedules

00:57:12.260 --> 00:57:23.180
where they’re no longer forced to clean an entire house in four hours when they realistically can clean it in six or seven.

00:57:23.180 --> 00:57:29.230
We’ve had to do lots of actions to make it
worth something because lots of people have

00:57:29.230 --> 00:57:36.070
come here to the office to ask for help because
they have worked and not been paid

00:57:36.070 --> 00:57:41.540
which is one of the points in the bill, hours worked are hours paid.

00:57:41.540 --> 00:57:45.750
But a lot of people don’t know about the bill.

00:57:45.750 --> 00:57:50.800
So, when they finally hear of it and they have had
a problem with receiving pay, we help them.

00:57:50.800 --> 00:57:57.800
And this is thanks to the bill or rights that we have.
It’s helping resolve a lot of issues that are rising.

00:57:57.800 --> 00:58:07.310
I worked for approximately one year in a school as a janitor.
He [the boss] didn’t pay me approximately one month.

00:58:07.310 --> 00:58:15.820
When I approached him, he told me that there was
not going to be any more work starting this coming Sunday.

00:58:15.820 --> 00:58:25.000
So, I talked to his supervisor and he told me they’re only going to pay me one week, but they owed me a month.

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:32.380
Well, that was my first experience and I didn’t know what to do. Well, then I remembered that I had heard of New Labor.

00:58:32.380 --> 00:58:42.720
So, from the actions that we kept doing with New Labor we were able to find for him to pay me not only the month that he owed me,

00:58:42.720 --> 00:58:53.190
but also we were able to recover the money
that turned out to be for overtime.

00:58:53.190 --> 00:59:10.580
So, approximately the calculations of hours he had not paid me even though I worked them, turned out to be close to $3,800

00:59:18.090 --> 00:59:30.100
Good morning everyone. I’m glad we’re all here today
on this very special day. An international day against wage theft

00:59:30.100 --> 00:59:40.950
since we’re always fighting so workers don’t have this problem. Very important: we are going to be in agencies, in three agencies,

00:59:40.950 --> 00:59:48.200
specifically because the agencies, aside from
stealing worker’s wages are never transparent.

00:59:48.200 --> 00:59:53.790
In particular, they don’t say where workers went,
they don’t take note of the worker’s hours.

00:59:53.790 --> 01:00:00.550
And when a worker goes to cash his check, his name doesn’t appear; they tell him, “You didn’t work.”

01:00:00.550 --> 01:00:08.060
So, more than anything, we want transparency from
the agencies so that workers can get their checks.

01:00:12.270 --> 01:00:21.280
This is the agency Professional. It’s an agency that has always had wage theft issues and also never has transparency in its payments.

01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:24.870
People go to work and don’t appear on the lists
when it’s time for payment.

01:00:24.870 --> 01:00:28.540
We have another colleague here, José,
who is a member of New Labor,

01:00:28.540 --> 01:00:32.000
who has had problems with this agency
and who also wants to speak here.

01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:41.010
Thank you very much, New Labor. I wanted to tell you that I too have been cheated, because I worked 8 hours

01:00:41.010 --> 01:00:48.350
on January 24 of this year, and they tell me
that I am not on the list after those eight hours.

01:00:48.350 --> 01:00:54.060
Like other people that have been cheated, I was cheated as well.

01:00:54.060 --> 01:01:00.230
I want them to review the list, to see if I appear,
and pay me for my eight hours of work.

01:01:00.230 --> 01:01:08.410
“What do we want?” “The payment!” “Who are we?” “New Labor!” “What do we want?” “The payment!”

01:01:11.790 --> 01:01:18.750
Basic wage and hour law protects all workers. So as long as you are working, you need to get paid for the work that you do, right.

01:01:18.750 --> 01:01:23.590
And you have recourse to make complaints for that.
And so that's the reason we did these anti-wage theft ordinances

01:01:23.590 --> 01:01:31.220
at the local level, knowing that municipalities could control the issue of local business licenses. So, it's not all

01:01:31.220 --> 01:01:37.650
industries or businesses, but they did have control over certain ones. And we've used that successfully to leverage

01:01:37.650 --> 01:01:43.240
unpaid wages to workers that was owed.
You know, having workers involved in that is very powerful.

01:01:43.240 --> 01:01:48.410
So, we know that wage theft happens, but we need to put numbers to it to present to city council, for example, to help pass local

01:01:48.410 --> 01:01:53.540
anti-wage theft ordinances. Right. Starting on the local level, leaders that have been trained to these Train-the-Trainers,

01:01:53.540 --> 01:01:59.170
they're also involved in enforcing those ordinances because the law is only as good as it is, if it can be enforced. Right.

01:01:59.170 --> 01:02:04.920
There's never enough people to go around to do the enforcement. So it's very crucial that, you know, organizations like ours,

01:02:04.920 --> 01:02:08.470
at New labor that the members are
developed to be able to do enforcement as well.

01:02:08.470 --> 01:02:17.810
Along with New Labor we were involved in passing
in New Brunswick in 2013 the state’s first local

01:02:17.810 --> 01:02:24.440
anti-wage theft ordinance which has since been
copied by a number of other municipalities.

01:02:24.440 --> 01:02:33.290
And so the wage-theft ordinances operate on a very simple principle that if you have a judgement by a court

01:02:33.290 --> 01:02:42.130
or the Department of Labor against you that says that you have engaged in wage theft and you owe an employee

01:02:42.130 --> 01:02:49.930
or a former employee money that you cannot have
your license renewed until that judgement is paid.

01:02:49.930 --> 01:02:58.310
And so it has been very effective getting money in the pockets of the workers who deserve that money in the first place.

01:02:58.310 --> 01:03:04.780
A specific case where I feel really good and
I feel proud is when we recover money for the workers

01:03:04.780 --> 01:03:13.990
because I feel that it is an accomplishment that we have,
not as an organization, but as a person.

01:03:13.990 --> 01:03:19.290
Because we have accomplished for a
person not to feel humiliated and

01:03:19.290 --> 01:03:25.800
for them not to rob what one has earned
because a salary is what you have earned.

01:03:25.800 --> 01:03:34.060
Stand up, Moril. Five thousand dollars was recovered.

01:03:34.060 --> 01:03:47.860
Well, I’m also a member here, and they supported me a lot.
This is the result. Thank you very much.

01:03:47.860 --> 01:03:53.370
So on the one hand I think worker centers have gotten
pretty good at being able to help workers who have problems

01:03:53.370 --> 01:04:01.250
on an individual basis. We're in a much better place than we were ten years ago. The problem is now though we have to get beyond

01:04:01.250 --> 01:04:08.920
playing the role of firemen. You know, the firemen sit around and wait for the bell to ring and then the fire to go put out.

01:04:08.920 --> 01:04:18.310
And worker centers have kind of gotten caught in that same place. Workers come with problems and we go help them solve them,

01:04:18.310 --> 01:04:25.650
but it doesn't really get at the real issue, which is to say that
the local labor market that that worker comes from,

01:04:25.650 --> 01:04:33.570
or that worker is employed in, is a bad labor market that needs
to be fixed. The conditions aren't just about that worker.

01:04:33.570 --> 01:04:40.000
They're about all the workers in that industry, in that
local labor market who are suffering from poor conditions.

01:04:40.000 --> 01:04:44.790
And that's the real problem. And the only way to address that problem is through organizing workers.

01:04:44.790 --> 01:04:51.420
And in the end, the workers have to do it themselves.
All the worker center can do is help facilitate the process,

01:04:51.420 --> 01:04:57.600
help the workers in organizing. But ultimately the workers are going to have to stand up. That's the key.

01:04:57.600 --> 01:05:05.230
Well I joined New Labor in 2007. Since 2007 here,
it has been a very drastic change in my life.

01:05:05.230 --> 01:05:17.160
But it has been in my favor, and the organization has also changed a lot because we’ve been part of many bills that have been won.

01:05:17.160 --> 01:05:25.830
We have grown as an organization.
Now we have many members and two more centers.

01:05:25.830 --> 01:05:36.840
As New Labor we have taken on many problems in the workplace and we’ve managed to make some workplaces change

01:05:36.840 --> 01:05:46.060
their way of thinking. Also these bills that New Labor has managed to pass during all these years have been in favor of the community,

01:05:46.060 --> 01:05:56.410
in favor of workers, and in favor of all workers in the State.
Well, the workers’ bill of rights really it is a protection

01:05:56.410 --> 01:06:05.870
that temp workers have won in New Jersey. And this is really going to make workers more respected, make their work valued,

01:06:05.870 --> 01:06:11.920
give them a better salary and, above all give them the
right to know where they are going to be sent to work,

01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:18.470
because for years we temp workers have never known. I’ve also been a temp worker, where they’re going to send us to work.

01:06:18.470 --> 01:06:25.560
They always tell us we’re going to “the chocolates”, we’re going to “the perfumes”, “the candies”

01:06:25.560 --> 01:06:30.060
but we really don’t know the place, what it’s called exactly.

01:06:30.060 --> 01:06:38.740
And the agencies are going to have to also disclose if there’s workers’ compensation insurance in case the workers

01:06:38.740 --> 01:06:46.830
have a problem, they get hurt. The other point is also very
important because it is the right not to face retaliation.

01:06:46.830 --> 01:06:51.170
Because workers, when they complain that
something is wrong at our job,

01:06:51.170 --> 01:06:57.630
we are simply fired for having complained
that there is something wrong, the agency fires you.

01:06:57.630 --> 01:07:03.470
So I think again it helps to go back to the very beginning
because this is a long time coming for us. This is like a huge fight.

01:07:03.470 --> 01:07:08.850
So, it's not just about passing this bill February 2nd,
getting it signed February 6th, 2023.

01:07:08.850 --> 01:07:14.940
This goes back to 2000 when we first started as a temp worker organization. You know, the idea of getting to a bill that would

01:07:14.940 --> 01:07:20.200
include “right to know” where people are sent out to work, how much they are getting paid, who the worker comp insurer is,

01:07:20.200 --> 01:07:25.490
basic things that we all take for granted that not everyone was getting from a temp agency. Equal pay for equal work.

01:07:25.490 --> 01:07:30.080
You know, if you're doing the same or substantially similar work to someone who's working for the company,

01:07:30.080 --> 01:07:35.050
it just makes sense. You should get paid the same amount as them. If you're sent out to a client firm and you're not needed, you get

01:07:35.050 --> 01:07:41.470
sent back, you should get paid a minimum of four hours of work for that day. Two hours if you're sent out to another location that day.

01:07:41.470 --> 01:07:46.970
Having wage bonding, right? So that in the event that a temp agency goes belly up, that they're still able to pay their workers.

01:07:46.970 --> 01:07:53.730
And yeah, having anti-retaliation protections so that workers can and should come forward without fear of being retaliated against

01:07:53.730 --> 01:07:59.650
just for making a complaint, based on this bill of rights. So, fifteen years ago we wouldn't have been able to pull something

01:07:59.650 --> 01:08:07.080
like this off. This is a testament to developing multiple leaders, being able to mobilize other people to fight and support

01:08:07.080 --> 01:08:12.790
and finally win, you know, a temp worker bill of rights. But you can see, you know, we had to keep fighting. We can't stop fighting.

01:08:12.790 --> 01:08:18.300
That's who we are. That's our modus operandi.
We can't stop it. There's no other option.

01:08:18.300 --> 01:08:28.390
So there’s still a lot of work to do to disseminate this bill so that it becomes a law that is used, right, so that it can be enforced.

01:08:28.390 --> 01:08:39.650
We have a big job to do with that, telling all the agency workers
that this bill has come out so that they can already start

01:08:39.650 --> 01:08:49.330
demanding that right, because it’s a law, it has to be complied with. And so, they share it by word of mouth, from one to the other.

01:08:49.330 --> 01:08:55.080
Well, for the organization it is a great
achievement that this bill has passed.

01:08:55.080 --> 01:09:00.460
Because for many years we’ve been fighting,
and not one or two years.

01:09:00.460 --> 01:09:05.180
It has already been twenty-two, more than
twenty-two years that we’ve been in this fight.

01:09:05.180 --> 01:09:10.810
So I think it’s a great achievement
for the organization to have won this bill

01:09:10.810 --> 01:09:16.690
because it really took a lot to get there
and win it, because we had many obstacles.

01:09:16.690 --> 01:09:27.200
For a long time we were collecting information
from all the agencies that were here in New Brunswick,

01:09:27.200 --> 01:09:39.800
in Plainfield, in all the other places where the agencies exist. We were lobbying in Trenton because we had to talk to the senators,

01:09:39.800 --> 01:09:47.680
to the representatives, so that they would hear our stories,
hear what we were going through as temp workers.

01:09:47.680 --> 01:09:57.020
We did protests and that helped us too in that
it was important in demonstrating to the State

01:09:57.020 --> 01:10:03.990
that we did need the bill to pass and
that we did need temp workers to be protected

01:10:03.990 --> 01:10:11.370
because for many years they had not been protected.
And more than anything, the members did the most because

01:10:11.370 --> 01:10:17.670
they told their stories, and those stories really
made it possible for that bill to pass at the state level.

01:10:17.670 --> 01:10:27.130
For me, it’s really been a success to have gotten this bill passed

01:10:27.130 --> 01:10:37.440
because honestly sometimes you think that these laws are not going to pass, that it’s too difficult to protect temp workers

01:10:37.440 --> 01:10:46.150
especially since most of them are undocumented.
So for me it’s really been something very big,

01:10:46.150 --> 01:10:59.170
that we have achieved and something that was done by workers, that the organization and the workers really did this

01:10:59.170 --> 01:11:07.880
which is an achievement for everyone, more than anything,
not only for me, but I do feel very proud of that.

01:11:09.430 --> 01:11:18.100
Ultimately it is the people who will have an impact on it because change really happens you know from the bottom up.

01:11:18.100 --> 01:11:25.440
Change happens at the grassroots. Change is never
handed to the people who need the things changed.

01:11:25.440 --> 01:11:34.330
Everything that needs to be changed has to be fought for.
But I think people will demand change

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and I hope that this documentary will help in doing that.

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I would like to invite you to learn about this,
learn that you are not a machine,

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learn about the issues that we have spoken about here.
My colleagues and all of New Labor

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want you to learn and get that in your head.
You’re not a machine, you’re a person

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that lives and has feelings, has kids, has a
husband, has friends, not only in this country,

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but in Mexico, in Honduras, in El Salvador, wherever
you’re from, wherever you are, you have family.

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You’ve listened to the problems that we have faced here,
don’t let that happen to you and if it’s happening to you, get out.

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You have our support here at New Labor
and if you’re not local to us and you see this video

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join a local organization that will help you, you’re not alone.

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New Labor has made much progress over the years
for our communities and we continue to do so.

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My name is Doris and I am an organizer here.
I learned English here, I learned safety,

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I learned to fight for my rights.
I have a family here and I joined the fight.

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We are New labor. We are not machines, no somos maquinas.