Wage Theft and Work Safety: Immigrant Day Labor Jobs and the Potential for Worker Rights Training at Worker Centers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kara Takasaki ◽  
Matt Kammer-Kerwick ◽  
Mayra Yundt-Pacheco ◽  
Melissa I.M. Torres
Keyword(s):  
Work Experiences ◽  
Work Safety ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Worker Centers ◽  
Informal Labor ◽  
Wage Theft ◽  
Labor Exploitation ◽  
Precarious Labor ◽  
Worker Center

Abstract Immigrant day laborers routinely experience exploitative behaviors as part of their employment. These experiences are understood in the context of their immigration histories and in the context of their long-term goals for less precarious labor and living situations. Using mixed methods, over three data collection periods in 2016, 2019, and 2020, we analyze the work experiences of immigrant day labors in Houston and Austin, Texas. We report how workers judge precarious jobs and respond to labor exploitation in an informal labor market. We also discuss data pertaining to a worker rights training intervention conducted through a city-sponsored worker center. We discuss the potential for worker centers to be a convening and remediation space for workers and employers. Worker centers where immigrant day labors meet employers offer the potential for informal intervention into wage theft and work safety violations, by formalizing the context where laborers are hired.

How Worker Centers Organize Low-Wage Workers: An Exploration of Targets and Strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 0160449X2198942
Author(s):  
Jessica Garrick
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Worker Centers ◽  
Center Staff ◽  
Community Based Organizations ◽  
Worker Center

In response to the growing absence of unions from the private sector, community-based organizations known as worker centers have emerged as a new front in protecting and organizing workers. Scholars generally argue that worker centers have converged on a model of combining service provision with organizing and advocacy, supported primarily by funding from foundations and government agencies. I draw on interviews conducted with worker center staff, a dataset compiled from their public materials, and secondary research to add to the existing literature and to argue that a clear categorization of worker centers can be derived by attention to their primary workplace strategies. First, worker centers can be meaningfully distinguished by whether they attempt to raise standards in specific industries versus responding to problems in individual workplaces. But they can also be distinguished based on the extent to which they view public policy or winning agreements with employers as the primary route to systemic improvements. These divergences in strategy echo Progressive-era debates about the role for the state in redressing workplace ills. Similar to that era, strategic differences among today’s worker centers are driven less by ideology and more by the distinct structural challenges facing workers in particular political and economic contexts.

Exercising agency in a hostile environment: How do refused asylum seekers find work?

Ethnicities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1049-1070
Author(s):  
Paul May
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Informal Labor ◽  
Anthony Giddens ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Informal Labor Market

Using Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory, this article analyzes the specific ways refused asylum seekers use agency to find employment, despite a legal framework that prevents them working. It is based on a total of 34 semi-structured interviews conducted in Paris. Three points are to be noted. Firstly, there is a hierarchy in the type of jobs available: the most popular jobs can be accessed by borrowing the identity of a third person with regular status, while people who cannot use this means are confined to jobs on the more precarious fringes of the job market. Secondly, our research highlights the existence of an informal labor market that asylum seekers can approach, sometimes even before their asylum application is filed. It is also a space for discussion, advice, and contact with other undocumented job seekers, accessible in specific locations or via the Internet. Thirdly, any long-term prospects are hindered by the precariousness of a person’s migration status: although French legislation officially makes regularization possible, under certain conditions, for people who can justify working without ID, our research reveals a series of obstacles on the ground that make this prospect unlikely. In addition to analyzing the current institutional situation, this research focuses on migrant agency, which is crucial to understanding the hidden aspects of migration.

scholarly journals ‘There You Enjoy Life, Here You Work’: Brazilian and Dominican Immigrants’ Views on Work and Health in the U.S.

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (20) ◽  
pp. 4025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Araujo Brinkerhoff ◽  
C. Eduardo Siqueira ◽  
Rosalyn Negrón ◽  
Natalicia Tracy ◽  
Magalis Troncoso Lama ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Work Experiences ◽  
Immigrant Status ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Immigrant Populations ◽  
Worker Center ◽  
Development Center ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Unstructured Groups ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Work And Health

Structural inequalities in the U.S. work environment place most immigrants in low paying, high-risk jobs. Understanding how work experiences and influence the health of different immigrant populations is essential to address disparities. This article explores how Brazilian and Dominican immigrants feel about their experiences working in the U.S. and how the relationship between work and culture might impact their health. In partnership with the Dominican Development Center and the Brazilian Worker Center, we held five cultural conversations (CCs) with Brazilians (n = 48) and five with Dominicans (n = 40). CCs are participatory, unstructured groups facilitated by representatives from or embedded in the community. Brazilian immigrants focused on physical health and the American Dream while Dominicans immigrants emphasized concerns about the influence of work on mental health. Dominicans’ longer tenure in the U.S. and differences in how Brazilians and Dominicans are racialized in the region might account for the variation in perspectives between groups. Future studies should further investigate the relationship between health and how immigrants’ work lives are shaped by culture, race and immigrant status.

scholarly journals Effects on students of working in industry

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Aaron Simon Blicblau ◽  
Tracey Louise Nelson ◽  
Kourosh Dini
Keyword(s):  
Academic Performance ◽  
Project Work ◽  
Work Outcomes ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Capstone Project ◽  
Academic Grades ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Impact

This study investigated the impact of two arrangements of work experiences; short term (over 12 weeks, STIE) and long- term (over 52 weeks, LTIE) on both final academic grades and capstone project grades. The results from this work will inform future approaches of determining the benefits to students of the usefulness of industry placed learning experiences (short or long term) as both an indicator of academic performance, and success in capstone project work. Outcomes have shown that engineering graduates without substantial industrial experience often find employment difficult to find in the short time after completing their studies.

scholarly journals THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND BURNOUT SYNDROME AMONG DEPARTMENTAL UNIVERSITIES TEACHERS

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 432
Author(s):  
Natalia Kolesnikova ◽  
Oksana Makarkina ◽  
Dmitry Dvoretsky ◽  
Yuriy Dyatlov ◽  
Marina Manoylova
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Burnout Syndrome ◽  
Professional Activity ◽  
Professional Burnout ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Discrete Response ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Relationship

The article deals with the results of the study on burnout syndrome among teachers with various work experiences in university. The aim of the study is the review of burnout psychological patterns among teachers with various work experiences in university. The main hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption that the teachers whose work experience in departmental universities is more than 10 years are more vulnerable to the burnout syndrome development. In order to attain the envisaged goals and to test the hypothesis there were used empirical methods: differential diagnosis of decreased functioning by A. Leonova and S. Velichkovskaya, diagnosis of professional burnout by K. Maslach and S. Jackson adapted by N.E. Vodop’yanova, technique for diagnosing the burnout syndrome level by V.V. Boiko. Group comparison of teachers with various work experiences in university has shown that long term professional activity leads to burnout syndrome development: the most part of examined teachers are characterized by high level of burnout syndrome which structure is observed in high intensity of resistance and exhaustion phases and such syndromes as inadequate emotional discrete response; resignation or depersonalization, emotional and moral disorientation; psychosomatic and vegetative disorders.  

scholarly journals Something Old and Something New: Future Directions in Vocational Research With People of Color in the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Y. Flores ◽  
Leticia D. Martinez ◽  
Gloria G. McGillen ◽  
Johanna Milord
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Work Outcomes ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Environmental Disasters ◽  
Career Interventions ◽  
Mobility Strategies ◽  
The Impact

Vocational psychology scholarship has largely overlooked the work experiences of people of color. In this article, we present evidence that vocational research that addresses the work issues of people of color has been neglected in the key outlets for vocational research among vocational psychologists. We outline seven directions for research inquiry with people of color, namely using culturally sensitive research methods, increasing research on the effectiveness of career interventions, integrating interdisciplinary perspectives, merging psychological and educational science with vocational development, using intersectional approaches, examining collective mobility strategies and structural reforms, and assessing the impact of environmental disasters on long-term educational and work outcomes.

scholarly journals Midlife Work and Women’s Long-Term Health and Mortality

Demography ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-402
Author(s):  
Jennifer Caputo ◽  
Eliza K. Pavalko ◽  
Melissa A. Hardy
Keyword(s):  
Later Life ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Work Patterns ◽  
Mature Women ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Mental And Physical Health ◽  
Health And Mortality

AbstractAlthough paid work is a well-established predictor of health, several gaps in our knowledge about the relationship between adult work patterns and later health and mortality remain, including whether these benefits persist over long periods and whether they are dependent on subjective experiences with work. We draw on more than three decades of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women to assess how labor force participation over a period of 20 years during midlife is related to mental and physical health and mortality over the following 16–25 years. We find that consistent work earlier in life continues to predict improved health and longevity over many years as women enter late life, and this relationship does not differ between women with positive and those with negative subjective work experiences. These findings add to knowledge about how key adult social experiences are related to health as individuals enter later life.

Change and Stability in Work Commitment in Norway: from Adolescence to Adulthood

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTER HYGGEN
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Work Commitment ◽  
Work Experiences ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
State Research ◽  
The Welfare State

The individual's commitment to work has occupied a central place in much welfare state research. This centrality relates to beliefs that welfare system design influences the ways in which people come to value employment. If, as believed, generous benefit systems diminish citizens' willingness to work, then these systems undermine both the legitimacy and the performance of the welfare state. This article explores change and stability in work commitment in a Norwegian cohort born between 1965 and 1968. We investigate whether and if so how individuals' experience with the welfare system and their personal, family or work experiences influenced their level of work commitment between 1993 and 2003, from adolescence to adulthood. Findings show work commitment as relatively stable across the ten years, with some individual-level change relative to changes in family life (such as becoming a parent) and in work experience (such as long-term unemployment). Results indicate that the fear of disincentive effects on individuals' work commitment is exaggerated.

Characteristics and Measures for Safe and Stable Work of College Students in the New Period

2014 ◽  
Vol 971-973 ◽  
pp. 2532-2535
Author(s):  
Ya Xiu Liu
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Security Mechanism ◽  
Safety Education ◽  
Work Safety ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
New Period ◽  
Education And Awareness ◽  
The New Period ◽  
Careful Management

The characteristics of the work safety in the new period of the school are analyzed, including the current political situation, economic situation and their own. Based on this, put forward the education task, including strengthening safety education and awareness of students, strict, careful management, safety education and guidance. The author concludes, security and stability of campus is a complicated system engineering, need the joint efforts of many aspects, adopt a variety of measures, including the establishment of security mechanism, perfect safety education, to promote the construction of style of study, long-term to the students' sound.

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