Organizing to Build Worker Power & Fight the Boss!
CNIWJ is composed of base-building organizations who build the leadership of immigrant workers to lead the fight against wage theft, labor exploitation and unjust labor practices. Our fight to demand dignified working conditions for immigrant worker communities, is an extension of the day-to-day struggles our worker leaders face in their workplaces. We will continue to fight, push back and educate policymakers until dignified working conditions are a reality for ALL workers in California. Fighting for the dignity and wellbeing of immigrant workers through concerted organizing is central to the work of the California Network for Immigrant Worker Justice and its members.
The Industries We Represent
Service workers, Warehouse workers, Domestic workers, Farmworkers, Garment workers, Janitorial workers, Working-class parents advocating for their families, Street vendors and informal workers, Organized immigrant youth
Governor Newsom as a representation of the fight on the shop floors
Governor Newsom, beyond being the head of the state government, has clear economic interests that align with those who oppress and exploit workers in the shopfloor. After all, he is a rancher and a business owner who has used his platform on the state and national level to continue to safeguard the interests of the megarich at the expense of frontline workers. Therefore, our fight to demand funding for immigrant worker communities, from a boss and governor like Newsom, is just an extension of the day-to-day struggles our worker leaders wage in their shop floors. We will continue to fight, push back and educate ourselves until the dignified funding and working conditions we demand are won for ALL workers in California.
Our fight for unemployment benefits for all is directly tied to the daily fights our leaders wage on the shopfloor. The exploitation workers in the periphery of the economy face is a mirror of the way government funding intentionally exploits immigrant workers only to exclude them from vital social services. Fighting for unemployment benefits for all is fighting for the dignity and wellbeing of excluded workers who forge dignified working conditions and counter wage exploitation through concerted organizing day in and day out across the state of California.
Political Education
Theory
Action
Reflection
Political Education
Our virtual and in-person workshops center the experiences of immigrant working-class communities across the state. Past training topics have included: Introduction to Racial Capitalism, Understanding the History of Immigration Policy in the US, and Know Your Story: Telling your story through the lens of class analysis.
Community forums
Community forums are open to working-class immigrants across the regions where our member organizations are based. We focus on providing tools to understand the political system that currently targets and persecutes us with an emphasis on how our Network’s work and proposals aim to uplift, defend and organize excluded workers across the state.
Direct action
Our struggle has always been proudly grounded in the need to disrupt business as usual as a means to uplift our demands and make those in power reconsider who they’re siding with. Direct action is a fundamental part of concerted working-class struggle for material changes in the lives of our communities. From Sacramento to the streets of our neighborhoods, we stand ready to take action to get the goods our communities need.
Leadership Development
Our member leaders, also known as ‘delegades’, are a fundamental part of our coalition: taking strategic decisions on our work and guiding the path we walk together as a Network. This requires building up the skills and analysis so that they can have a full and informed participation in the debates and discussions that shape our strategic outlook. We are committed to continuing to build the leadership and protagonism of working class leaders to challenge and transform the injustices working class immigrant communities face today.