Strengthening the Worker Defense Clinic to Help Overcome Barriers to Economic Mobility for Day Laborers and Temporary Workers

The Voz Workers' Rights Education Project in the U.S. will develop a new legal clinic model and create a public campaign to raise awareness and understanding among the day-laborer community and its employers about the structural and historic barriers to their economic mobility. Day laborers, who are largely immigrants, refugees, and people of color, face low wages, insecure work, poor working conditions, and wage theft, causing many to live below the poverty level. Despite being disproportionately impacted, many day laborers do not qualify for federal stimulus funding for COVID-19. Voz Workers' Rights Education Project's new worker defense clinic model will be developed to facilitate a process through which day laborers become protagonists and strategists by offering education on the systemic causes of their lived experiences, skills on campaign strategies, and legal consultation. Those individuals will then be able to train others that come through the clinic. Staff, volunteers, and day laborer leaders will work together to create a campaign to present workers' experiences and share success stories using digital and non-digital platforms.