WORKERS' RIGHTS
Mission: Brandworkers is a non-profit organization bringing local food production workers together for good jobs and a sustainable food system. Brandworkers' Focus on the Food Chain program is a member-led campaign to create good local jobs and a sustainable food system in New York City. Focus on the Food Chain helps recent immigrant workers challenge and overcome sweatshop conditions in the food processing factories and distribution warehouses that supply the City's food retailers. Through grassroots organizing, advocacy, and legal actions, Focus members are winning workplace justice campaigns and building a powerful base of leaders to create a sustainable food system in New York. Focus on the Food Chain is carried out jointly with the Industrial Workers of the World (New York City).
Website: https://www.brandworkers.org/volunteer
Email: Winnie Zwick, wzwick@brandworkers.org
Phone: 646-568-5870
What volunteers do:
- set up events
- provide hildcare
- workplace justice actions
- research
Mission: Community Voices Heard (CVH) is a member-led multi-racial organization, principally women of color and low-income families in New York State that builds power to secure social, economic and racial justice for all. We accomplish this through grassroots organizing, leadership development, policy changes, and creating new models of direct democracy. The NYC Chapter currently has committees, projects, and/ or hubs focusing on welfare/workforce; public housing; the Rockaways hub (organizing in public housing); participatory budgeting; and East Harlem neighborhood planning.
Website: http://cvhaction.org/chapters/new-york-city
Phone: 212-860-6001
Email: Carmen@cvhaction.org
What volunteers do:
- flyering
- door-knocking
- community outreach
- participate at CVH events
- social media outreach
Borough: Manhattan
Mission: Damayan means “to help each other” in Filipino. Damayan is a nonprofit organization that empowers low-wage workers to fight for their labor, health, gender and immigrant rights. Established in 2002 by a group of Filipina domestic workers, we self-empower grassroots leaders to eliminate labor trafficking, fight labor fraud and wage theft, and to demand fair labor standards to achieve economic and social justice. We promote discussions on gender, race, class, globalization and forced migration to raise public awareness and support against the systemic causes of the exploitation of low wage workers, particularly migrant women domestic workers. Damayan also works to reunify families divided by migration.
Website: www.damayanmigrants.org
Phone: 212-564-6057
Email: contact@damayanmigrants.org
What volunteers do:
- organize vulnerable communities by creating call lists of individuals to check on daily
- help with community outreach
- help with office tasks such as filing, data entry
- provide legal help
- IT support
Mission: Domestic Workers United [DWU] is an organization of Caribbean, Latina and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in New York, organizing for power, respect, fair labor standards and to help build a movement to end exploitation and oppression for all. DWU collaborates with other domestic worker organizations in New York, across the US and internationally to build the power of the domestic workforce as a whole. In 2003, DWU and the NY Domestic Workers Justice Coalition launched the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights campaign. After six and a half years of organizing, building a base of over 4000 workers and a broad coalition including employers, unions, clergy and various community organizations, we brought our power to bear with the passage of the nation’s first comprehensive legislation extending basic rights and protections to domestic workers. The New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights was signed into law on August 31, 2010. DWU is now leading the implementation of the historic law through outreach, education, and enforcement and also helping to support similar Bill of Rights campaigns across the country.As a membership-based organization, DWU is open to any domestic worker who is committed to our mission and goals to organize for power, respect, fair labor standards, and to build a movement for social change.
Website: http://www.domesticworkersunited.org/index.php/en/get-involved/volunteer
Email: dwuinfo@domesticworkersunited.org
Phone: 718-480-7511
What volunteers do:
support campaign work
office administration
phone bank
research
staff events
translate
Borough: Brooklyn
Mission: For 25 years, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) has pursued racial and economic justice in New York City by advancing systemic changes that result in concrete improvements in people’s everyday lives. We are inspired by Jewish tradition to fight for a sustainable world with an equitable distribution of economic and cultural resources and political power. The movement to dismantle racism and economic exploitation will be led by those most directly targeted by oppression. We believe that Jews have a vital role to play in this movement. The future we hope for depends on Jews forging deep and lasting ties with our partners in struggle.
Website: http://jfrej.org/get-involved-2/
Phone: 212-647-8966 x11
Email: leo@jfrej.org
What volunteers do:
- after orientation, members work on:police accountability; workforce rights for home healthcare workers; fighting Islamophobia; movement building through arts and storytelling; and outreach
- special caucuses for Mizrahi Jews, Jews of Color, and poor and working-class Jews
- long-term campaigns and targeted actions
Mission: NDWA works for the respect, recognition, and inclusion in labor protections for domestic workers. Domestic workers care for our children, provide essential support for seniors and people with disabilities to live with dignity at home, and perform the home care work that makes all other work possible. They are skilled and caring professionals, but for many years, they have labored in the shadows, and their work has not been valued. These workers deserve respect, dignity and basic labor protections. NDWA is winning improved working conditions while building a powerful movement rooted in the human rights and dignity of domestic workers, immigrants, women, and their families by working with a broad range of groups and individuals to change how we value care, women, families, and our communities; developing women of color leaders and investing in grassroots organizations to realize their potential; and building powerful state, regional, and national campaigns for concrete change. Together, we can win the protections and recognition that this vital American workforce needs.
Website: https://www.domesticworkers.org/volunteer
Volunteer form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qh-DIeK_9ziFPkhau659kQxr9c9FJZFCiK3AlRT_xMU/viewform?edit_requested=true
Phone: 646-360-5806
Email: info@domesticworkers.org or arun@domesticworkers.org or yashna@domesticworkers.org
What volunteers do:
- communications
- development
- design
- digital and social media
- domestic worker organizing team
- finance & operations
- international organizing
- legal team
- policy team
- social innovations team
- join We Belong Together immigration campaign
- join We Dream in Black — Black domestic worker organizing campaign
Mission: New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) is a community-based organization dedicated to building the power and advancing the rights of immigrant workers in New York. Current campaigns focus on curtailing wage theft through contractor licensing reform, protecting job seekers through employment agency reform, garnering municipal support for worker centers, and fighting for comprehensive and inclusive immigration reform. NICE operates a Community Job Center where workers collaboratively agree on rules and fair wages and connect with potential employers. The center serves as a safer alternative for workers who solicit employment at street corners and at employment agencies. At the center, NICE offers leadership and skills trainings, health and safety certification courses, Know-Your-Rights workshops, English classes, assistance to recover unpaid wages, and referrals to critical services.
Website: http://www.nynice.org/volunteer
Phone: 718-205-8796
Email: info@nynice.org
What volunteers do:
- host an event
- fundraise
- write for the blog
- social media
Borough: Queens
Mission: The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health uses training, education, and advocacy to improve health and safety conditions in our workplaces, our communities, and our environment. Founded in 1979 on the principle that workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths are preventable, NYCOSH works to extend and defend every person’s right to a safe and healthy workplace. Over the years, we have built coalitions of community, environmental, and labor organizations to win inspirational campaigns; trained over one hundred thousand workers in New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley; successfully led advocacy efforts around the creation of New York State’s occupational health clinics and the Public Employees Safety and Health Act; conducted educational conferences for hundreds of workers on the disproportionate hazards on the job facing immigrant and low-wage workers, workers’ compensation, workplace violence, asbestos, office hazards, and ergonomics; and provided thousands of various technical assistance consultations on issues ranging from the aftermath of a wastewater treatment plant explosion and lab safety in schools. NYCOSH was at the forefront of disaster response and recovery after the World Trade Center disaster, as well as after Sandy, and continues to advocate for disaster preparedness through its work on infectious diseases–most recently, Ebola. Additionally, NYCOSH has been at the forefront of one of the most inspirational campaigns of low-wage immigrant women workers to hit New York City. The New York Healthy Nail Salons Coalition continues to be a key campaign of NYCOSH as we seek to further impact nail salons throughout New York State and the country at large.
Website: http://nycosh.org/take-action/volunteer/
Email: nycosh@nycosh.org
Phone: 212-227-6440
What volunteers do:
- research grassroots fundraising
- help existing fundraising initiatives
- host house parties
- attend city council and community board meetings
- help write reports on health and safety in NYC
- bring new members to NYCOSH
Mission: There are more than 10,000 street vendors in New York City — hot dog vendors, flower vendors, book vendors, street artists, and many others. They are small businesspeople struggling to make ends meet. Most are immigrants and people of color. They work long hours under harsh conditions, asking for nothing more than a chance to sell their goods on the public sidewalk. Yet, in recent years, vendors have been victims of New York’s aggressive “quality of life” crackdown. They have been denied access to vending licenses. Many streets have been closed to them at the urging of powerful business groups. They receive $1,000 tickets for minor violations like vending too close to a crosswalk — more than any big businesses are required to pay for similar violations. The Street Vendor Project is a membership-based project with more than 1,800 active vendor members who are working together to create a vendors’ movement for permanent change. We reach out to vendors in the streets and storage garages and teach them about their legal rights and responsibilities. We hold meetings where we plan collective actions for getting our voices heard. We publish reports and file lawsuits to raise public awareness about vendors and the enormous contribution they make to our city. Finally, we help vendors grow their businesses by linking them with small business training and loans.
Website: http://streetvendor.org/get-involved/volunteer/
Email: svp@urbanjustice.org
Phone: 646-602-5679
What volunteers do:
- one Saturday each month, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m, walk the streets to do outreach and recruitment
- plan meetings
- shoot video
- make phone calls
- write legal briefs
- office support
Mission: CDP supports grassroots and community-based groups in New York City in the areas of capacity building, consumer justice, housing justice, neighborhood change, participatory research and policy, and workers’ rights. We model our internal structure on anti-oppressive and democratic principles in order to create an environment that mirrors the progressive change we pursue through our work. CDP provides legal, participatory research and policy support to strengthen the work of grassroots and community-based groups in New York City to dismantle racial, economic and social oppression. Our partners take the lead in determining the priorities and goals for our work, and advance our understanding of justice. This upends the traditional power dynamics between communities and service providers. We believe in a theory of change where short-term and individual successes help build the capacity and power of our partners, who in turn can have longer-term impact on policies, laws and systems that affect their communities. Our work has greater impact because it is done in connection with organizing, building power and leadership development.
Website: https://cdp.urbanjustice.org/cdp-volunteer
Email: hepstein@urbanjustice.org
Phone: 646-459-3017
What volunteers do:
- research (especially community-focused) and statistical analysis
- graphic design/marketing
- web design/editing
- translate/interpret in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Korean and South Asian languages
Mission: Worker’s Justice Project (WJP) is a Brooklyn-based worker center that addresses the racial and economic injustice that day laborers and domestic workers face by building collective power and creating solutions to the problems our members experience at work and in communities where they live. We empower low-wage immigrant workers to gain a voice in the workplace and build strong and economically sustainable communities through education, organizing, leadership development, and the growth of grassroots economic alternatives such as our fair wage cleaning and construction services. Our main goals are to change the conditions that lead to exploitation, to strengthen the grassroots base of the labor movement, and to create grassroots economic alternatives. We pursue our goals through advocacy, grassroots organizing, education and training, creative expression, and by working in a coalition with allies that support our common objectives.
Website: https://workersjustice.org/get-involved/
Phone: 347-500-9124
Email: info@workersjustice.org or ligia@workersjustice.org for fundraising volunteering
What volunteers do:
- after training in negotiating from WJP staff, workers’ rights advocates make a 10-month commitment, 5-10 hours/week to recover unpaid wages (must have basic computer skills and be fluent in Spanish and English)
- day-labor organizers make a 6-month commitment, 3-5 hours/week to work with WJP staff organizer to visit day-labor sites in Brooklyn and Queens and organize day laborers to defend their labor and civil rights and write updates about their assigned site (must be fluent in Spanish and available one morning/week 7:30-9:30)
- volunteers (Spanish not required) can help with fundraising support such as data entry and writing
- bilingual tech-savvy volunteers enhance WJP’s website