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July 7, 2022

Worker Organizations and Unions Applaud Department of Labor’s New Process to Protect Immigrant Workers

National - Yesterday, the Department of Labor (DOL) made public a new Frequently Asked Questions document that clarifies the process for immigrant workers who experience or witness labor rights violations at the workplace to seek protection against retaliation. Unemployed Workers United and the Los Angeles Federation of Labor issued the following responses to the updated guidelines announced by the DOL:

“We applaud the announcement from DOL. It is an important step toward protecting immigrant workers from the fear of retaliation for asserting their labor rights. This helps advance the Biden Administration's commitment to ensure infrastructure investments create good-paying union jobs and promote equitable economic growth.” - Neidi Dominguez, executive director of Unemployed Workers United.

“As we welcome the DOL’s announcement, we also call on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to act quickly to release its own guidelines detailing how it plans to process workers’ requests for protection. This process cannot achieve its full potential until DHS does its part.” - Ron Herrera, President of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor.

For decades, workers have been fighting discrimination and exploitative practices in the workplace. Still, fear of deportation chills immigrant workers from speaking out, holding all workers back from improving working conditions. By supporting workers’ requests for protection from deportation, the DOL process announced today provides an important new tool that can improve working conditions for all workers regardless of immigration status.

Unemployed Workers United operates in multiple states to respond to our current economic and health crisis with solutions that will allow all of us to thrive –– anchored by five partnered national progressive organizations: People’s Action, United for Respect, Mijente, the National Black Worker Center, and Working Families Party. Our focus is to organize with local grassroots organizations to engage unemployed, underemployed and workers facing precarious employment in building power to change their living conditions in their cities and change the working conditions in their workplaces.

The Los Angeles Federation of Labor is a coalition of over 300 affiliated union and worker organizations representing more than 800,000 members in every industry and from every background.