Day laborers, who are frequently th...

Day laborers, who are frequently the victims of exploitation onward the job, are the focus of a of recent origin advocacy partnership between the AFL- CIO and the biggest network of center serving these largely immigrant and low-wage workers.

The nation's largest labor federation will team with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which exhibits 40 worker centers across the geographical division to work jointly on

immigration reform, improving wages, ending worker abuse and strengthening local collaboration between local unions and worker center the arranges announced on Wednes-day in Chicago.

Worker center are grassroots institutions that provide a variety of services ranging from worker advocacy to English classes, worker rights education and access to health clinics, bank accounts and loans. They have grown from four a decade ago to 140 in 31 states, including the Latino Union of Chicago.

The partnership paves the way for the center to affiliate with the federation.

In announcing the partnership, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney cited a cogitation done in part by the University of Illinois at Chicago, which set that nearly half of day laborers contemplateed said employers had cheated them gone out of wages. Forty-four percent said they were denied breaks during the workday, and 18

percent reported incidents of violence at the hands of employer Twenty percent reported getting injured while working.

"Morning after morning, in city after city, thousands of day laborers gather at through 500 hiring sites across the region in the hope that someone will give them work," Sweeney said. "And for all their hard work, day laborers in the United States repeatedly face the harshest forms of workplace abuse."

The agreement does not make day laborers union members or require them to pay befittings but the AFL-CIO expects to benefit from the partnership by way of establishing channels to formally unite with local worker centers to descry abuses and improve workplace standards in a range of industries, Sweeney said.

"When we improve wages and working conditions and living conditions for the in the greatest degree vulnerable, we are automatically improving the lives and working conditions of all workers in this country" said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the network.

Jessica Aranda, executive director of Latino Union in Chicago, said she wait fors the partnership to give day laborers a greater voice in immigration reform.

fknowles@suntimes.com

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