Senator John Edwards joined NELP and New Jersey's Raise the Wage Campaign in Newark to call for a much-needed minimum wage increase for New Jersey's workers.

 

The New York City Council's Health Committee recently held a hearing on the Responsible Restaurant Act, an innovative proposal to protect New York City's restaurant workers and responsible restaurant owners by improving compliance with minimum wage and other employment laws. NELP worked closely with the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY) and the City Council to help design the proposed law, and also testified at the committee hearing. A press release, fact sheet, and text of the legislation are also available.

 

Some states, frustrated by lack of Congressional action on immigration reform, have turned to ill-conceived immigration "enforcement only" proposals at the state level. These divisive provisions raise serious questions, from the Constitutional to practical. Here are three new NELP fact sheets that provide advocates with analysis of pending proposals, and some options for real reform. They are: Social Security No-Match and Employer Sanctions: States Should not Duplicate an Error-Prone Process, addressing state proposals to force employers to use the social security system as an immigration enforcement tool; Immigrants and Contracts: States have no Constitutional Power to void contracts between immigrants and citizens, addressing illegal proposal to cancel all contracts if one party is undocumented, and E-verify/Basic Pilot Program : States Should not Make a Flawed Federal System Mandatory at State Level, examining state attempts to force employers to use a flawed federal system as an immigration enforcement tool.  NEW!  Costly in Every Way: States that Have Implemented Harsh Anti-Immigrant Laws Face Grave Economic Risks, detailing the costs to implement and litigate the state bills, as well as their serious impacts on state economies, and their human costs, and Unintended Consequences: Limited Workers' Compensation Benefits for Undocumented Workers Exposes Workers to Greater Risks of Injury, Business to Greater Costs, outlining the unintended impacts of proposals that deny workers' compensation coverage to vulnerable immigrant workers.

 

From Anti-Immigrant to Pro-Worker: With anxiety about jobs and the economy at peak levels in our country, and gaps between rich and poor at an all-time high, some states and municipalities have turned to punishing and scapegoating immigrant workers as a supposed "solution," passing misguided policies that focus on workers' immigration status. These rules miss the real problem of labor laws that leave many workers behind, and tepid enforcement policies. NELP's new fact sheet, From Anti-Immigrant to Pro-Worker, highlights over two dozen model policies that offer fair laws coupled with robust enforcement. Click here

 

Navigating the New Port Worker Criminal Background Checks:  NELP's Second Chance Labor Project has released a new guide tailored just to port workers to help them navigate the complicated criminal background checks now required by federal law.  The latest material includes "A Worker's Guide to the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) Application, Appeal and Waiver Process" (December 2007) and a TWIC "know your rights" fact sheet describing the special protections available to port workers who are denied the right to enter a port by the Transporation Security Administration (which has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Punjabi, Khmer, Hindi, Urdu, and Vietnamese).

New Direct Action Guide: Increasingly, workers' centers around the country are engaging in direct action in order to help their members recover wages owed them. This Guide contains worker centers' best practices for negotiating directly with employers, letter-writing and picketing campaigns that work. It also includes advice about avoiding or handling Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP) suits that are used by some employers as a tactic to discourage direct action. Click here