Fair & Just Workplace Campaign

We at the Center for Community Problem Solving have created our Fair & Just Workplace Campaign to help people deal with problems they might face as workers. Our Campaign includes ambitious public awareness drives, engaging in-person workshops, and comprehensive written materials. In all ways, we strive to provide thorough and accessible information about workplace rights and the mechanisms, strategies, and tools available to enforce and enhance those rights.

Our Campaign responds to the sad reality that low-wage workers’ lack of knowledge about their workplace rights makes them dramatically more vulnerable to exploitation. At the same time, we recognize that even the most honorable employers can struggle through the maze of labor and occupational health and safety laws that govern their relationships with their workers. Meanwhile, we know that even the most responsible everyday consumers can go to great lengths and still not find reliable information to help them sort through which businesses they do and do not want to support.

Designed in close collaboration with the New York State Attorney General’s Office and with a growing number of diverse community service providers, our Fair & Just Workplace Campaign reaches out to low-wage workers (including, in particular, people coming out of jails and prisons, day laborers, laundry workers, immigrants), employers, and the general public. In various languages and formats, we explain workers’ rights to fair hours and wages (promised pay, minimum wage, overtime, breaks), to Workers’ Compensation in case they get injured or sick on the job, and to safe and healthy work environments. And we share useful information about available resources and ways to access those resources – including ways to keep detailed records, to negotiate with bosses, to make reports to government agencies, and to file complaints in small claims court and (with the help of lawyers) in other courts still.

Our Center’s work with communities does not stop there. As with all our Community Economic Development Project work, we hope through our Fair & Just Workplace Campaign to help us all grasp what democratically accountable community economic development can mean and how we might all have a greater voice in decisions being made about our lives. Economic policies and practices should be made accessible and answerable to everyone – not just the wealthy and not just the well-connected. Using our Fair & Just Workplace Campaign as one essential building block, we aim to reach out to a wide range of individuals, families, and communities and to ask them to join us in making economic development make sense for us all.