Immigrant Workers’ Rights
The Bacon Program is currently investigating the incidence and frequency of worker exploitation and abuse among low-wage workers in Southern Arizona. It is generally understood that low-wage workers are particularly vulnerable to violations of state and federal laws that protect workers' wages, hours, health, safety, and dignity. Immigrants, both recent and long-term residents, hold many such positions, and their social, economic, and legal status make them especially vulnerable to such abuse. Many of their jobs operate outside of public view and in circumstances in which enforcement is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst. Particularly in the current political climate, these workers face significant barriers to coming forward with violations.
Arizona's considerable immigrant population, proximity to the southern border, and growing, if slowed, overall population make it a place with a large and active market for immigrant labor. Currently, however, there is very little information about the workers in this market and the conditions in which they work. Through the work of the Bacon Program's Tucson Immigrant Workers Project, we know that low-wage immigrant workers in Southern Arizona frequently encounter unpaid or underpaid wages, unsafe working conditions, discriminatory treatment, harassment, and retaliation against those who choose to assert their rights.
The Bacon Program seeks to document these abuses in a more systematic manner by interviewing and surveying immigrant workers about their experiences in the workplace. In doing so, the Program hopes to understand, among other issues, the frequency of workplace violations in general and what differences, if any, there are from one industry to the next. Industries of particular focus will be domestic services, construction, landscaping, and restaurant services.
As part of this project, the Program is also working to evaluate the quality of employment and labor law enforcement in Southern Arizona. To that end, the researchers are interviewing service providers, state and federal government agencies, and advocates for workers to better understand the extent to which legal remedies and mechanisms are effective in this area.
Based on the surveys and interviews, this project aims to produce policy recommendations for federal, state, and local actors. The Program will be working on this project throughout 2011. In addition to its policy research, the Bacon Program also provides immigrant workers with Know Your Rights presentations and free, confidential legal advice and counseling through the Immigration Law Clinic's Tucson Immigrant Workers' Project.
Last Updated: 03/28/2011