Finding the synergy between law and organizing: experiences from the streets of Los Angeles

Fordham Urban Law Journal, Feb, 2008 by Victor Narro

I. INTRODUCTION

The topic of law and organizing has generated much scholarly debate over the past twenty years. (1) There exists a wide array of articles written by legal scholars and other academics on the relationship between public interest lawyers and organizers during the process of legal representation and litigation. From critical reflections to theoretical propositions, these articles discuss the role of public interest lawyers involved in community and labor campaigns. Unique to law and organizing is the theory that lawyers can promote social justice and empower low-income communities through legal advocacy, which is intimately connected and ultimately subordinate to a grass roots organizing campaign strategy. (2) Law and organizing legal scholars present sophisticated theoretical analyses and concrete practical examples of how legal advocacy and community organizing can be integrated as credible social change strategy. (3) They propose case models of law and organizing that suggest that public interest lawyers should transition from a conventional legal practice to one where their efforts focus on facilitating community organizing campaign efforts. (4)

In recent years, the law and organizing model has been most prominently applied as a strategy for improving the conditions of low-wage workers. Public interest and legal services lawyers in the field of workers' rights have combined litigation and workplace organizing techniques to pressure employers to enforce wage and hour requirements, workers' compensation laws, occupational health and safety regulations, child labor protections, and anti-discrimination laws? This new approach of law and organizing in the workplace draws upon the traditional theories of labor organizing. (6)

Like their union counterparts, law and organizing proponents seek to build collective bargaining power as to create more equitable working conditions. Despite the strong connections to the union movement, workplace law and organizing advocates have been forced to venture outside the scope of conventional labor law practice for a variety of reasons. (7) Most importantly, the declining power of unions, particularly in the low-wage employment sector, has heightened the need for alternative workplace organizing tactics. (8) Much of the current law and organizing activity in the workplace context has therefore sought to bring the protections and advantages of unionization to the non-unionized workforce. This effort has been important in industries where labor has a weak presence, such as the garment industry or in areas in which unionization would be impractical, such as domestic work or day labor. These industries are also comprised of large numbers of undocumented immigrant workers who are employed on a part-time or contingency basis and who are particularly vulnerable to employer exploitation. (9)

The worker center movement has opened up opportunities for progressive lawyers to engage in this model of new "empowerment lawyering." Throughout the last decade, Los Angeles and other major cities have witnessed the emergence of non-traditional organizing efforts by community-based worker centers. Due to major economic and migration trends that have led to demographic and structural changes in the manufacturing and service industries, the exploitation of low-wage, predominately immigrant workers has become prevalent throughout the low-wage workforce. (10) During this period of demographic changes and restructuring within these industries, there have been very few, if any, avenues for immigrant workers to participate at the workplace and integrate into the economic and social fabric of American society. (11) Many of the institutions and labor organizations that helped these immigrant workers in the past have either disappeared or seen their presence decline dramatically. (12) Low-wage immigrant workers increasingly labor in these industries in which there are few or no unions or outlets through which workers can fight for their rights. (13)

Within this context, worker centers have struggled to emerge over the past several decades as a new type of organization that can assist immigrant workers. (14) Worker centers are community-based membership organizations that organize workers to fight widespread labor exploitation. (15) Worker centers organize at a grassroots level, across trades and industries, in working-class communities. (16) In addition to confronting systematic exploitation in the workplace, the centers also focus their attention on the economic, social, and political concerns of their members. (17) These centers are part of a comprehensive effort to build a new labor movement to fight against exploitation of immigrants and other working-class people. (18)

A growing number of worker centers across the country provide service and advocacy support for immigrant workers; many have also become community centers that promote civic participation. (19) These innovative campaigns have provided public interest lawyers the opportunity to look at new models of empowerment or people lawyering that are integral to organizing. The Workplace Project in Hempstead, New York is a well- known example of this model. (20) The Workplace Project was the first group to use legal representation and legal services to support a broader worker center effort to build a new movement of non-traditional and non-unionized workers. (21)