The Day Labor Project

The Latino Union collaborates with construction day laborers, businesses and community residents to facilitate neighborhood dialogue, counter police and contractor abuses, and improve working conditions on street corner hiring sites. A founding member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Latino Union has worker members in the Albany Park, Logan Square, and Little Village neighborhoods in Chicago as well as in the town of Cicero. Since its inception, the Latino Union's worker organizing and education has led to increased wage levels, increased workplace safety, and more accountability among employers.

In December of 2004 after four years of community and worker organizing, the Latino Union opened the first Workers’ Center for construction day laborers in the Midwest. The Albany Park Workers' Center acts as an alternative to hyper-competitive street corner hiring. Through the implementation of a written contract and city-wide promotion efforts, the Center reduces incidents of wage theft to below 1% and raises the median wage available to Northwest Chicago construction day laborers by 50%.

During the summer of 2005, the Latino Union also successfully responded to sweeping arrests of workers seeking employment at a construction supply store in the suburb of Cicero. Through worker organizing, media campaigns, and courtroom advocacy with the National Lawyers Guild, charges against the workers were dropped and the decade-old hiring site where workers meet up with their employers was reestablished.

For further information on the national corner day labor phenomenon, click here to read On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States, a report published in February of 2006 by the University Illinois at Chicago and the University of California at Los Angeles