How Funders Can Help Immigrant Workers Win the Protections They Deserve

It's been a little over a year since the Biden administration unveiled an innovative policy to deter employers who prey on workers without papers. The so-called Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement program, or DALE, grants temporary work authorization and deportation protection to immigrant workers who blow the whistle on wage theft, dangerous working conditions and other labor violations.

DALE is the best pro-worker policy that nobody has ever heard of. Nobody, that is, besides the grassroots worker justice organizations and legal allies across the country that have been organizing immigrant workers and helping them to apply for it. They often refer to it by its unofficial Spanglish name, Desde Abajo Labor Enforcement. ("Desde abajo" means “from the bottom up.”)

For those toiling in the fields of labor and immigrant rights, DALE is a powerful organizing tool, a workplace enforcement measure and a potentially game-changing bit of immigration reform, all in one. About 2,000 workers have gained work authorization through DALE in the last year, and the administration has been processing requests almost as quickly as it receives them. But that number is a tiny fraction of the untold millions of immigrant workers in the United States who are both undocumented and exploited, who silently endure dangerous working conditions and illegally low or unpaid wages because they fear the consequences of speaking out.

This is where an increased commitment by philanthropy to turbocharge the work of the organizations that are producing the bulk of the applications for the DALE program could make a huge and immediate difference. Labor and immigrant rights organizations say there are tens or hundreds of thousands more workers who could qualify for DALE if they simply had the resources to reach them, support their organizing and help them through the application process.

Philanthropy has taken bold action in recent years to support immigrant rights and worker organizing. More philanthropic funding for the organizations that are making rights real and helping workers apply for DALE could yield enormous returns for worker safety and well-being. By cracking down on unscrupulous employers, deferred action can make workplaces more safe and lawful for everyone. Eliminating unfair competition also helps businesses that are complying with labor laws. And it has the potential to do something else — address endemic labor shortages in healthcare, social assistance, hospitality, food services, agricultural work, construction and manufacturing by raising job quality.

Where workers have courageously come forward as a group, the results have been impressive. In Las Vegas, a paint contractor called Unforgettable Coatings spent years stealing the wages of hundreds of employees, withholding overtime pay, falsifying records and requiring workers to volunteer without pay on weekends. With the help of the labor rights organization Arriba Las Vegas, workers won a $3.6 million consent judgment last year.

Similar organizations are organizing with workers who are eligible for DALE across the country. New Labor in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is helping warehouse workers standing up to workplace dangers and wage theft. Arise Chicago is helping fast food and food manufacturing workers standing up to rampant abuse and exploitation. Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is helping seafood workers standing up to unsanitary conditions, dangerous overcrowding, and denial of rest breaks and sick days. Centro de Derechos del Immigrantes works with the tens of thousands of agricultural guestworkers who come from Mexico to harvest our food every year, too often under dangerously exploitative conditions in the fields.

For all these successes, advocates say lack of capacity is holding them back. Their key need is funding to build organizational infrastructure and expand their reach. When workers come forward to organize and tell their stories of wage theft and abuse, at great risk to themselves and their families, they need to know an organization will stand with them as they pursue their rights and seek relief and protection.

There are two main reasons for urgency.

The first is the perpetual disgrace of the dangerously exploitative immigrant workplace. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, in 2022 there were 5,486 fatal work injuries — that is, 15 worker deaths a day. Although they make up 15% of the labor force, foreign-born workers account for 18% of on-the-job fatalities.

April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, created to honor the workers who have died performing dangerous and difficult jobs, and those who have organized and fought for safer working conditions. This year, we will remember the many immigrant workers who died working without protections on the front lines of the pandemic, and the men who were recently swept to their deaths in the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

They came from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. There are millions more workers like them all across this country. They are making essential contributions to our economy and society, but their labor is largely unrecognized and unprotected.

And what is the second reason that organizers and philanthropic supporters should be joining forces now to fully realize the opportunity of DALE? Two words: Donald Trump. Organizers know they cannot be complacent in hoping he'll lose this November. They have to be prepared for the possible return of an administration that vows to punish the undocumented with detention camps and mass deportations on a scale not seen since World War II.

Maybe that catastrophe won't happen. But organizers need to act as if it will. They know they have mere months to utilize this great tool to catalyze as many DALE cases into motion and get deferred action for as many workers as possible.

To get there, philanthropies can do much more to build a strong, well-resourced community of organizations on the ground that are focused on implementing DALE, building on the following areas that some of the organizers have identified:

Scaling the organizing through models that can catch fire and go viral. Building on the success of organizations that are doing the work now and have the appetite and capacity to grow quickly.

Communication to reach workers who could initiate a labor investigation — and win DALE protection — but don't know it.

Training of organizations through expanding the boot camp model that Arriba Las Vegas and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network have been running, to create national cadres of skilled organizers.

Greater capacity to do strategic research on employer targets, including subcontractors and temp agencies with multiple corporate entities that are often able to avoid investigative scrutiny. Many workers are already covered by Statements of Interest (SOIs), but organizations need to be able to reach them.

Legal support that is free or nearly free in as many places as possible through universities, law clinics and volunteers, avoiding highly paid immigration lawyers.

It may seem fanciful to talk so hopefully of fulfilling the immense potential of DALE. Those of us who fight for decent and farsighted labor and immigration policies are used to disappointment. Although some funders strongly supported the important advocacy that won this policy, they are holding back on funding the critical work of implementation. The community of organizations that has been working on this is seen as terribly divided, and some funders have lowered their expectations in terms of what is possible. Others, some of whom have long supported immigrant rights organizations, are not yet investing in the DALE campaign.

Policy implementation is where the rubber meets the road. In the past, philanthropic funders have played a critical role in providing the resources to realize the potential of federal action — from helping to implement the Affordable Care Act and supporting Dreamers as they took advantage of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to ensuring the uptake of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and, most recently, making sure that the Inflation Reduction Act fulfills its potential to create millions of good jobs. This is such an opportunity.

As the auto workers' recent victories have shown, worker organizing is enjoying huge public attention and support even in these divided times. More organizing will lead to more victories. DALE has the potential to transform the highly dangerous and exploitative industries that rely on immigrant workers. It is a hugely appealing opportunity for undocumented workers — a powerful incentive to step forward and confront the boss. It could greatly expand worker organizing, to the benefit of workers across the country. The mechanisms to scale DALE organizing are in place, but they won’t fulfill their potential without a greater investment from philanthropy.

Janice Fine is Professor of Labor Studies and Employment Relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and Director of the Workplace Justice Lab@RU.

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