While Massachusetts has made two recent increases in the minimum wage, most Chinese immigrant workers have seen little improvements in their wages and working conditions.

Chinese immigrant workers are concentrated in the ethnic enclave economy and in service and light manufacturing sectors of the mainstream economy which are characterized by low pay, poor working conditions, and lack of union representation.

Developers and elected officials tout the economic benefits of rapid commercial development in and around Chinatown, but Chinese workers have seen little result.

Workers Center Goals

The Workers Center was founded by unemployed garment workers in 1987.  The Workers Center combines workers’ rights education, leadership development, and support for collective action to develop the roles of immigrant workers as leaders in their workplaces, in CPA, and in the community.

The goal of the Workers Center is to help Chinese workers learn about and organize for our rights, and to develop solidarity with workers of different communities and nationalities. The Workers Center:

• promotes awareness of workers’ rights
• provides support for collective action
• organizes the unemployed and the unorganized
• promotes fuller participation by Chinese workers in union activity to strengthen the labor movement
• develops Chinese workers’ voice in the policy arena
• builds the leadership role of Chinese workers in our community and in society.

The Workers Center holds a monthly “coffee hour” to develop workers’ solidarity and mutual support, and involves immigrant workers in a Workers Center Committee for leadership development and decision-making.

In the past year, we helped approximately 150 immigrant workers with workplace rights counseling and support.

CPA plays a core role in developing the Immigrant Workers Center Collaborative to build organizing capacity and solidarity between the Chinese, Brazilian, and Latino communities.

We are working to demand local and minority hiring goals for local development projects, and to ensure that Green Jobs in the energy efficiency sector become good jobs for low-income communities and people of color. We have launched the first Chinatown Green Justice Weatherization Pilot that will employ local workers from the Chinese community in union jobs weatherizing homes with a pathway into the apprenticeship program. See our news and events page for more information.

Activities

The Workers Center holds a monthly Monday Coffee Hour, with discussions and activities to promote mutual support around workplace struggles, and help immigrant workers learn about US society, labor laws, and workers’ rights. We also hold a weekly drop-in Know Your Rights Workshop every Monday morning, for workers to discuss work-related problems; topics rage from wage theft to unemployment insurance to safety and workers’ compensation.

The Workers Center Committee helps plan long-term campaigns, strategy, and Workers Center activities.

Accomplishments

Power One: Factory laid-off 400 workers in July 2001. Chinese Progressive Association assisted the workers in organizing 3 pickets and winning $1 million in re-training benefits.