Workers’ Rights Project

Know Your Rights – Conozca Sus Derechos

The Workers’ Rights Project works to enforce and expand policies that ensure safe workplaces, a living wage, and a strong safety net in times of hardship. The team empowers workers to advocate for their rights in the workplace, secures public policies that improve economic security for working families, and ensures workers get the training they need for quality jobs. Over the years, attorneys, lobbyists, and analysts have:

• Filed class actions on behalf of H2A farmworkers and H2B workers in North Carolina to ensure they were fairly paid their transportation and visa costs and the promised wage.
• Supported passage of legislation increasing the state’s minimum wage to the federal minimum wage level, increasing wages for over 30,000 workers.
• Supported passage of legislation that expands eligibility for unemployment benefit payments to thousands of jobless workers.
• Played a key role in securing worker protection reforms after the Hamlet fire tragedy, including adoption of protections against retaliation in the workplace and more OSHA inspectors.
• Helped establish an enhanced system to combat “misclassification” of workers as independent contractors, which leads to workers being denied protections and benefits.
• Led efforts to reduce barriers to reentry for individuals with criminal records by improving expunction laws, creating certificates of relief, establishing reentry councils, and prohibiting occupational licensing boards from automatically disqualifying individuals with criminal records.
• Worked with partners to pass legislation and regulations expanding protections for migrant workers in the areas of pesticide exposure and migrant housing.