Workplace Health and Safety Organizing in the Informal Economy: Government/Grassroots Collaborations Targeting Hard-To-Reach Workers

Low wage day labor (mostly immigrant men) and domestic work (mostly immigrant women) are rapidly growing sectors of the informal economy. Though workers in these physically challenging occupations face substantial workplace health and safety challenges, they are hard-to-reach in terms of collective organizing campaigns and effective health and safety education and advocacy. Barriers preventing day labors and domestic workers from receiving adequate health and safety protections include: the informal nature of their work, their work precariousness (in that these workers usually work without a contract, are easy to fire, and have a limited understanding of their workplace rights), the race, ethnicity and gender of the workers, and the workers' inadequate understanding of worker rights and employer responsibilities. Workforce organizing campaigns can address each of these obstacles, and government policy can play an important role in fostering effective organizing and outreach among these hard-to-reach populations. Recently, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has targeted its Susan Harwood Health and Safety Training Grants at catalyzing workplace organizing and health and safety education among hard to reach populations like immigrant day laborers. This paper will report on the kind of immigrant worker organizing and education activities funded by this grant program in recent years, with a special focus on the activities of a Denver worker center known as El Centro Humanitario. Their health and safety campaigns among hard-to-reach workers includes peer-to-peer training networks, street-corner outreach and organizing, and digital storytelling allowing workers to report on their workplace safety issues in short films.