A Child of Immigrants Helps Workers Stand Up for Their Rights
May 17, 2007 | Read Time: 6 minutes
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My parents were Chinese immigrants, and my father was a social worker who worked primarily with Southeast Asian refugees. I remember my father
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saying that the U.S. welfare system really did not help people come out from “under the table.” He used to say that the rich and powerful were having a wonderful meal, but those who were on welfare were being kept alive by the scraps of food that fell to the floor.
I went to college at the University of California at Berkeley, where I majored in English and French literature, before getting a graduate degree in journalism at the University of Missouri.
After college I moved to New York, where I worked as a reporter and researcher at Time magazine, and I also did some freelance writing for other publications, such as The Village Voice and The Nation.
As a journalist, I learned that I had to do more than observe things and write about them. I felt I needed to enter the community in some way to better understand the lives of workers and better understand their concerns, which led me to volunteering with the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association, which fought for Chinese workers’ rights in the workplace. I taught English to new immigrants from 1983 to 1991.
When you look from the sidelines at low-wage working people or immigrants, you think they are pretty powerless or that they are victims. But as I began volunteering and getting involved in actually going to restaurants with restaurant workers, for instance, I remember thinking, “Wow, these people are very strong.” They taught me what it truly means to be courageous.
In 1991, I was hired as a staff organizer. In 1996, a number of working men and women and students from many different backgrounds — Asian-Americans, Afro-Caribbean, and others — organized the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops to lobby for their rights in the community and in the workplace. In 1997, I was named executive director.
Today, we have a membership of about 500 men and women and an annual budget of $400,000. Most of our funding comes from foundation grants, such as those from the New York Community Trust, the Public Welfare Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the New York Foundation, as well as contributions from individuals.
As executive director, I am inspired as I see immigrants and other workers start to stand up for their rights. These restaurant workers, garment workers, office workers, and construction workers — all very vulnerable people — are taking control of their lives.
For example, one supermarket had grocery baggers that it was not paying a penny. These baggers were allowed to put out a jar for tips, but that was their only compensation. On busy days, workers were not allowed to use the restrooms — and many of these baggers were older women — nor were they allowed to take a break for lunch. When things were slow, and they were allowed time for lunch, they had to take it outside, regardless of whether the weather was horribly cold or terribly hot. After doing this for as many as six years, a number of these grocery baggers were fired.
They came to us for help. We organized the workers from two stores to fight for what they wanted — wages they had not been paid, jobs that paid fair salaries, and some control over their hours.
We worked with these people to put pressure on the owners of the store. The workers took legal action to get paid. At the same time, we began getting word out to the public through news conferences, handing out fliers, picketing, and going to church congregations to gather signatures on our petitions.
All of a sudden, these managers realized that they were getting a lot of bad publicity that could threaten their businesses, and they became more open to talking with the workers, although things have still not been resolved.
In addition, a lot of our work is focused on workers’ injuries on the job. In the aftermath of September 11, workers’ compensation has been a huge issue, and for undocumented workers, this is the only government benefit that they can turn to, although that right is now being challenged.
A lot of the September 11 cleanup workers are experiencing health problems, which are getting worse and worse. Insurance companies do not want to pay workers’ compensation, so they are delaying cases for years. We feel very much that this is not as a result of incompetence, but is a deliberate attempt not to pay this money to the people who are entitled to it.
These insurance companies find all sorts of pretexts. For instance, one member who had worked to remove asbestos was trying to get medical attention. He would go to the doctor, but the insurance would fail to reimburse the physician. Not surprisingly, the doctor eventually refused treatment because he was not being paid. Consequently, the insurer closed his case — as the man was not seeing a doctor, he clearly was not ill.
In March, we held a news conference in response to [New York] Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s and the State Legislature’s changes in the workers’ compensation laws. While Governor Spitzer did make a few positive changes, he did not deal with the fundamental problems, such as insurance companies, which would not pay in a timely manner or would arbitrarily stop benefits.
In spite of the fact that the governor did raise workers’ compensation from $40 a week to $100, we were insulted and are working to make that figure $286 a week, which is the minimum-wage rate in New York State. We are also looking at more preventive measures to avoid on-the-job injuries. For instance, now workers who refuse to work overtime can be fired. We have been organizing workers to lobby for legislation that says one cannot be fired for refusing to work overtime if overtime would be a threat to their health.
This has been such a learning experience for me — we are reaching more and more workers and more people, as well as the policy makers. It is so inspiring to see people who are so courageous and who come together to push for what they need. When they are facing injustice, they no longer are saying, “That’s just the way it is, and we have no choice to but take what is handed out to us.”
But the best can always be achieved when everyone comes together. This work is my way of doing what my father described as “bringing people to the table.”
