Above photo: Bosses often break the law to try to keep workers from organizing. But a little-known federal program can defuse the fear of deportation, and make union organizing more possible. Jim West, jimwestphoto.com.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to organizing, for workers everywhere, is fear of retaliation. This is an even greater factor when the workers are undocumented immigrants. Not only do you fear being suspended or fired, but the idea of being deported if the employer calls immigration, and being separated from your family, multiplies the fear.
But a federal program that few know about can offer confidence-boosting legal protection. Arise Chicago has been supporting workers to use the program, Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE).
Raids Ended, Fear Continues
The fear of workplace raids remains widespread—even though the current federal administration has not conducted workplace raids targeting immigrant workers since 2021.
Memoranda issued by Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, directed workplace immigration enforcement to go after employers, rather than workers, who break the National Immigration Act. Looking for work is not illegal, but knowingly hiring undocumented workers is.
Mayorkas went even further in 2021. Immigrants in deportation proceedings, no matter the reason, can argue that they are participating in a civil or labor case, and they can get their deportation case suspended.
But in 2022, a major change allowed undocumented workers who filed claims or complaints for legal violations in the workplace to benefit from “deferred action,” an administrative process under which those workers can obtain a temporary work permit and a legal Social Security number.
Little-Known Program
The problem is that almost nobody in the immigrant communities is aware that workplace raids have ended; almost nobody knows that a deportation process can be suspended if you are exercising your rights in the workplace; and almost nobody knows about DALE.
Most workers are intimidated when the employer threatens them with calling immigration, or when the employer claims to have powerful friends in government and the most expensive attorneys. Many do not realize this is an empty threat. If employers call immigration on their own workers, the employer could face legal implications for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.
So employers abuse undocumented workers. “They punish us if we use paid sick days or get injured at work. But we can’t do anything about it because we don’t have papers” and “They pay us less than minimum wage because we don’t have documents,” are regular complaints heard at Arise Chicago. Many undocumented workers resort to temporary agencies because “the company can’t hire us because we do not have papers.”
Work Without Benefit
“I am not going anywhere,” says Alfredo, a tortilla factory worker and single father with two sons with disabilities. “My kids were born here, and they should live here, so I am staying.”
Alfredo is not the only immigrant in this situation. Tens of thousands of undocumented workers are reaching retirement age after living and working in the United States for 20 or 30 years.
“I don’t have savings, and I can’t obtain Social Security benefits while I am undocumented,” states Alfredo. Indeed, even with a legal Social Security number, immigrants “authorized to work” in the US are not eligible to collect retirement benefits while in the United States. They would have to voluntarily go back to their country of origin to obtain it.
Many undocumented immigrants are victims of scams and lose money every year to scammers who ask for money to “jump the line,” “get a valid Social Security card,” “receive a guaranteed work visa,” and other fake offers. Undocumented immigrants spend thousands of dollars trying to “fix their papers.” Some of these scams are run by employers.
For workers who have been retaliated against by their employers, DALE is a better option, and very real. DALE was created so that immigrant workers would feel safe, rather than fearful, to cooperate with labor rights enforcement agencies to hold abusive employers accountable.
Alfredo and almost 300 of his co-workers lost their fear and obtained work permits after filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and the Chicago Office of Labor Standards.
Both agencies issued Statements of Interest, and Arise Chicago secured a dozen immigration attorneys to work on this and future cases. This was Arise Chicago’s first DALE case.
Since then, Arise Chicago has engaged workers at 34 companies, obtaining Statements of Interest and supporting the process for over 1,000 workers.
Work permits embolden workers to take action they would otherwise be afraid to take, and Arise organizers tapped into this new-found courage. Many more workers than before participate and collaborate with the agencies investigating the charges, submit evidence and give testimonies, and participate in organizing committees in the workplace.
At one particular factory, the organizing committee grew so large that Arise motivated the workers to seek unionization. The United Auto Workers UAW Local 551 is taking part in that campaign.
Breaking Through Fear
DALE came to fruition after years of immigration advocates fighting for protections to stop employers from illegal worker abuse. Congress is deadlocked, leaving no possibility of a real immigration reform. So advocates pushed for executive actions like DALE.
DALE involves every government agency that enforces laws applied in the workplace, from minimum wage to the Americans with Disabilities Act to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to local ordinances for paid sick days. Local human rights offices, state attorneys, state OSHA programs—any government agency that upholds worker rights—can use DALE.
After filing complaints or claims with a government agency, worker centers, unions or even workers themselves can request that the agency provide a Statement of Interest. The SOI is a letter from the agency to Homeland Security requesting deferred action for workers involved in a labor dispute.
An important note is that the SOI covers all workers at a given workplace, temporary or permanent—not just the worker or group of workers who filed the claims or complaints. With the SOI, all workers in the workplace can then individually apply for deferred action.
The SOI is included in a package of documents sent to Homeland Security by the individual workers or their immigration attorneys, along with personal information, identity documents, check stubs, W-2s, etc.
If Homeland Security approves the individual’s request, it issues an Employment Authorization Document, which is a work permit, good for four years and renewable as long as there is a labor conflict in the workplace. Once the work permit is issued, the worker can request a valid Social Security number, and even consolidate his or her account to combine all years worked and taxes paid.
The stated goal of the DALE program is to enforce labor laws by encouraging workers to come forward with evidence and testimonies.
Organizing Power
While workers may obtain an immigration benefit, Arise Chicago stresses that this is not an immigration program. DALE is a secondary result of workers organizing against bad working conditions and violations of worker’s rights.
Using DALE, for organizers, is not about filing labor charges to get work permits. Arise starts with education about workers rights and labor laws. Educated workers organize committees and decide if charges should be filed with labor agencies, with Arise support. Only then can the DALE process proceed.
Workers from a local supermarket came to one of Arise’s labor rights workshops in 2023, to find out how to “get papers.” After a couple meetings with an organizer, on health and safety issues and paid sick time, workers were tasked with finding out if there were violations in their workplace.
They came back a few weeks later with a map of hazards at the worksite, along with timesheets, schedules and other documents proving wage and hour violations. Organizing continues inside the supermarket and the workers have filed complaints with OSHA and other labor agencies.
Now those workers are regularly participating in the bi-weekly Arise labor rights workshops, to continue learning and to support other workers.
With DALE to help workers overcome their fear, unions have the potential to sign up hundreds of thousands of new members, and improve the odds of success in organizing drives.