LATIN UNION INC
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Mission Statement
Latino Union collaborates with low-income immigrant and U.S.-born workers to develop the tools necessary to collectively improve social and economic conditions.
About This Cause
Women temporary workers founded Latino Union of Chicago in 2000 to improve working conditions in temporary employment agencies and in the communities where they lived and worked. Their initiative led to the passing of the first Day Labor Ordinance in 2002, subsequently passed in strengthened form as the Day Laborer Protection Act in 2005, which regulates temporary hiring agencies state-wide. In its early years, Latino Union focused on corner day laborers, low-income immigrant workers who seek temporary employment on public street corners in the home construction and landscaping industries. A four-year campaign led to the founding of the Albany Park Workers’ Center in 2004. The only one of its kind in the Midwest, the Center serves as a hiring hall, education site, and cultural hub on Chicago’s Northwest side that has increased average wages for day laborers by 200%. In March 2016, Albany Park Workers' Center launched a hiring program for housekeepers. In 2005, Latino Union’s efforts led to the formation of the Governor’s Panel on Latino Workplace Injury and Fatalities to address the disproportionate accidents that harm Latino workers. That same year, the organization collaborated with Cicero day laborers to have charges dropped for the wrongful arrest of 100 workers at a public hiring site. In 2006 and 2007, Latino Union coordinated media and press for the May Day marches that mobilized 1 million people – the largest immigrant rights marches in Chicago history. In 2007, Latino Union spearheaded the Illinois Coalition of Worker Centers to ensure the inclusion of 300,000 temporary workers originally omitted from the state minimum wage increase. That same year, the organization developed culturally relevant materials regarding response to unlawful raids that trained 5,000 community members in three languages. In 2008, Latino Union facilitated passing of the Cicero Sanctuary law that protects 85,000 immigrant residents from documentation-based discrimination. As an initiating member of the Just Pay For All Coalition, Latino Union's public education and outreach led to statewide implementation in 2010 of the strongest protection for workers against wage theft in the country. In 2011, Latino Union completed a three-year NIOSH workplace health and safety training program that trained 500 low-wage contingent workers in 10-hour certification. Latino Union replicated the paradigm-shifting program in collaboration with six workers centers in the Midwest and Southwest regions. That same year, Latino Union began supporting a group of nannies, caregivers and house cleaners organizing for stronger protections at work. Their efforts led to the passage of the Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2017. The bill grants household workers protections including a state minimum wage, overtime, one day of rest per week, and the right to file sexual harassment and discrimination claims. In 2013, Latino Union united with seven other Chicago-based workers centers and the Working Hands Legal Clinic to found the Raise the Floor Alliance, which brings together expertise in low wage worker community organizing. Latino Union is an affiliate of the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance (NDWA) and a founder and member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON).