Some exciting news – tomorrow is the first National APA Workers’ Rights Hearing where Asian American workers will present testimonies about wage theft, organizing campaigns and the right to form unions, and immigrant worker exploitation before a distinguished panel and an audience of over 200 people, representing a broad cross section of elected officials, labor leaders, community allies and academicians. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the community to get our concerns about employment, unemployment, workplace freedom, and employer abuses of immigrants out in the public record — because contrary to popular perception, APA workers face a number of abuses on the job. There will be a mix of low wage workers, blue collar workers, and professionals presenting their experiences, which makes for a good cross section of the Asian American workforce.
This is not only a historic, but vitally important event because hardly anyone is talking about or thinking about Asian Americans in the economy, and how we are being impacted. As cool as the NYTimes’ interactive graph “The Jobless Rate for People Like You” is (because it breaks it down by gender, age, and education), it still lumps APAs in with American Indians and mixed race Americans in the nebulous “Other” category at an unemployment rate of 8.2%. I’m pretty sure that based on what’s going in the my friends lives, and their parents’ lives that our community’s actual unemployment rate is significantly higher – closer to the 17% real unemployment rate (factoring in folks who have given up looking for work) that recently came out. This Workers’ Rights hearing is an opportunity for our stories and lives to be front and center, and I applaud the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance for stepping up and putting this event on, along with a slew of 20 other national APA groups, with a stellar panel that includes Congresswoman Judy Chu, newly elected AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Schuler, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (invited) and AAA Fund’s very own blogger John Delloro, who serves as National President of APALA.
For those of you who are interested in going to this AAA-Fund co-sponsored event, it’s Friday Nov. 13th from 11:30-1:30 at the AFLCIO, 815 16th St NW in Washington DC. Most importantly, after the event, APALA, UCLA Labor Studies Center and the Asian American Studies Department at the University of Maryland are going to put out a groundbreaking national report focusing on Asian Pacific American workers. This is based on a similar hearing and report that folks in California did in 2002 which generated a lot of attention. Also, kudos to the AFL-CIO for hosting the event.
Here’s just one of the stories from a worker who faces discrimination in the workplace. From the press release:
In his testimony, Ricky Lau, an electrician with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and an immigrant from China, spoke of how his former employer, NBC Contractors, paid him and his immigrant co-workers substandard wages and forced them to toil up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. One of four named plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the company, Lau testified that NBC Contractors was recently charged by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office for 48 felony counts, including massive wage theft, insurance fraud and perjury, involving millions of dollars.
“Our case highlights how immigrant workers, who may not speak English or know their rights, can be victimized by unscrupulous employers who cheat workers by not paying the proper wage,” said Lau. “It also shows how unions, in this case the IBEW, can and must play an instrumental role to assist immigrant workers in asserting our basic rights.”
It’s real people sharing their stories of struggle, standing up to unscrupulous employers, talking about the fight for equality, economic justice and workplace fairness. And this hearing couldn’t be more timely, given the miserable state of the economy. I’d love to see hearings like this in New York, Illinois, Washington State, and other states with high APA populations, shining a light on APA struggles in the workplace.
– Caroline
