California has many progressive labor laws intended to protect workers. However, progressive labor laws on their own do not guarantee that they’ll be implemented across the board for all workers, let alone for marginalized workers.
Low-wage immigrant workers often lack benefits and protections, face widespread exploitation, abuse, retaliation, among many other affronts, all while being the linchpin that keeps our economy functioning.
Power in our current economic system is heavily skewed toward employers, while racialized working-class communities are at the whims of a work “at-will” system. As the Black Liberation Movement has taught us, to truly change our economic system, those most impacted must lead their liberation. Only this will create an actual “trickle-up” economy that is built from the many transformative victories oppressed people lead.
To achieve transformative victories, low-wage immigrant workers must be organized. The vehicle for this is worker centers like Trabajadores Unidos Workers United (TUWU) that focus on developing low-wage workers who share a commitment to a fundamental transformation of labor relations that will benefit the broader base of workers while forming a proactive mutual aid network.
This strategic labor formation focuses on building worker power, gaining the benefits of collective bargaining for non-union workers, and taking on systemic barriers that enable oppression and exclusion.We build power through strength in numbers and organizing ourselves. When our people are together, we create a strong, grounded unity that allows us to shift power to the hands of working-class communities. This is why TUWU’s mission continues to be abolishing labor exploitation and creating collective bargaining power for excluded immigrant workers.