“This is the first legislation in the United States to give basic rights and protections to domestic workers and will cover New York’s 200,000 domestic workers, including nannies, elderly caregivers and housekeepers. The new law requires that private employers provide overtime pay for domestic workers, one day off a week, three days paid leave annually after one year and inclusion in disability benefits laws regardless of immigration status. Similar measures are being considered in California and Colorado.

This victory demonstrates the crucial role that research plays in organizing, at the grassroots level, for broad policy change. In 2004, the Domestic Workers United in partnership with DataCenter published Home is Where the Work Is: Inside New York’s Domestic Work Industry. This seminal study helped pave the way for the bill’s passage and continues to be one of the most authoritative sources of data on this largely invisible and vulnerable workforce. The study also showed how domestic workers can use their own experiential data and be recognized as genuine policymaking experts, heralding a change in the domestic industry as a whole.

In The Media: Over 160 people and at least a dozen media outlets attended the press release. Here are some links to newspaper and local television coverage:
SF Chronicle – SF Appeal – The Bay Citizen – Channel 7 – Channel 2

Special Thanks to Jon Frappier and Max Weintraub for presenting at the Camp!

On September 11th & 12th, the DataCenter hosted it third annual research training academy, and first research academy focused on environmental justice. The academy had an amazing turnout with participants from local organizations such as: Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Youth United for Community Action, Greenaction, Pacific Institute, and the Winnemem Wintu tribe.

What made this academy particularly special was the level of enthusiasm and dedication the participants brought. They were not gathered in the 3rd floor conference room to dwell on our past successes or commend each other for the most recent, campaign endeavors. Instead, the DataCenter staff was met with gregarious community organizers, interns, and staff that came prepared with serious questions about how to strategically improve their research framework and realize the goals of their campaign issues. We came prepared to challenge our colleagues and happily they came ready to make the utmost of this opportunity and pose their questions and concerns related to their on-going organizing.

Participants identified with DataCenter’s concept of “research as an organizing tool” framework, and found it helped strategically plan their campaign agenda. The Environmental Justice Research Training Academy accomplished its goal to provide the necessary skills-based workshops that would transform the community’s expertise (intimate understanding of the goings on in their community) into political ammunition that would hold up in mainstream knowledge.

A workshop held by DataCenter co-founder Jon Frappier and private investigator Amie Fishman covered corporate and individual profiling in such a manner that something initially viewed as dreadful and overwhelming by participants, was “kind of fun”. In addition to this duo, Max Weintraub, held a roundtable discussion covering the different agencies of the Environmental Protection Agency and laid out the different pathways participants could follow to acquire the necessary government resources to build their research issue. Lastly, Catalina Garzon & Eli Moore of Pacific Institute, added to the participant’s repertoire of tools to help transform the community’s reality into the empirical evidence widely accepted in mainstream media. Their presentation introduced two techniques—photo-voice & community mapping—not often used by community organizations.

Overall our intensive training academy was nothing short of amazing. Participants took home binders packed with resources that covered over and beyond what DataCenter managed to cover in those two short days. More importantly, many participants left inspired and ready to employ more innovative perspectives to environmental issues in their community.

As a Research and Policy Intern for DataCenter, in collaboration with the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA), I completed several projects dealing with low-wage workers in the food supply-chain.  The purpose of this research is to assist the members of the FCWA to gather information about workers in the industries all along the food chain so that they can improve conditions for all food-related workers. The industries analyzed include: agriculture, fisheries, animal husbandry, meatpacking/poultry processing, food processing and manufacturing, logistics (includes warehouses, transportation, food distribution), grocery, and restaurants.  The primary focus of these projects addressed mobility of the workers within these industries, whether there were opportunities for advancement, barriers to advancement, differences between unionized and non-unionized workplaces, and wage inequities.

The project began with a literature review where I found and summarized over 50 reports, articles, and publications that have been written about mobility and career ladders along the U.S. food supply-chain.  A major trend that this research highlighted is the vulnerability of those on the lower pay-scale of the food supply chain.  Also, citizenship status, lack of a formal education, and discrimination were among the barriers that many workers faced to moving up career ladders.
I also assisted in a data research project that focused on the number of those employed in food-related fields and the median wage and annual salaries of these workers.  We gathered most of our data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  We also looked at the National Agriculture Workers Survey and the USDA to find more specific numbers on U.S. agricultural workers.  Unsurprisingly, the data we found reinforced what the literature review had indicated; many workers in food-related industries are greatly underpaid and face many difficulties because of it.

Lastly, FCWA member organizations were interviewed to provide a first hand account on the above issues.  The first part of the survey focused on key positions within their field of expertise, the second looked at mobility of workers, and the third addressed companies and other major players within the industry.  Again, discrimination was a major barrier to advancement, organized workplaces had many more opportunities for those with a lower-wage, and mobility between industries was infrequent for workers.

Joann Lo, coordinator of the FCWA was quoted in saying:

“As far as we in the Food Chain Workers Alliance knows, no one has ever produced an extensive report on the state of workers throughout the food system in the U.S., including data on wages, career ladders, mobility, demographics, and health and safety conditions.  Chris’ research this summer has laid the foundation we need to organize and write this report, which will help guide the Alliance’s work as well as make an impact on allies and policy makers to support our campaigns and initiatives.”

My hope is that my work will further the goals of the DataCenter and the FCWA as much as it has furthered my own abilities and experience.  The research, the data collection, the interviews, and analysis were extensive and challenging, but I greatly appreciate the opportunity to engage in such meaningful work with two wonderful organizations.

We are pleased to announce the release of “The Quality of Life for Southeast Asian Youth in Providence” by Providence Youth Movement (PrYSM).   The report has been 4-years in the making, and includes data from the Southeast Asian Youth Survey, conducted by PrYSM youth back in 2006.  The survey interviewed over 360 Southeast Asian youth living in Providence, RI.  DataCenter provided support and training for the project.   It will be released at S.E.A. The Future, a conference which will take place on May 15-16, 2010, at the MET -Peace Street Campus.   The convening is historical and is the first initiative to bring together a large sector of Southeast Asian community leadership in Rhode Island – they are expecting to bring together 140-150 youth and adult leaders, stakeholders, and decision-makers.

Sustaining Organizing Study (SOS): A Strategic Social Justice Movement Assessment

Building the Social Justice Movement: Our Knowledge Will Not Be Televised…

For the first twenty years of its existence since 1977, DataCenter did research for the movement, by studying the “enemy” and ensuring Right to Know. For the next ten years, we also researched with the movement, helping communities research themselves. Now, we are poised, with other allies coming together to say, “Our Knowledge Will Not Be Televised!” The social justice movement is on level playing field with other institutions in society when we see research by the movement, for the movement, of the movement!

Sustaining Our Organizations

It’s a common thing these days when you come across someone working in the non-profit world to immediately ask how their organization and the work is faring in the current financial crisis.  Hearing stories both about the impact as well as interesting and innovating ways that groups have been sustaining themselves, the DataCenter, in partnership with the National Organizers Alliance, launched the Sustaining Organizing Study – an in-depth assessment of the impact of the economy on movement building and organizing work – in June, 2009.   The summer consisted of project design and a literature review that is now available on the project’s blog.  The next phase will include a survey of organizations and interviews with various stakeholders.   The SOS Project is guided by an Advisory Committee to ensure the inquiry is directed at the findings that will most benefit the organizing groups in honing their strategies for sustainability in organizing.

Project Advisor Sayo’:kla D. Kindness-Williams (Turtle Clan, Oneida Nation of WI) says that a “study of this nature is important to the sustainability of the organizations we have made long-term investments in. There is an ever-growing need for our work to continue and as this need increases we must be able to expand our services to meet the needs of our communities and we must also be able to plan for the future.”

The project’s literature review found over 60 reports and related articles that documented how deeply non-profits are hurt.  It is clear that organizations are struggling.  But it isn’t just about retelling the story of how hard groups have been hit, but as another Project Advisor Denise Perry, and Executive Director of Power U Center for Social Change in Miami, notes, “many organizations are struggling to figure out new ways to run their organizations with either less money or finding new sources of money.  It’s about any help we can provide for people to not feel isolated in this process, to not feel that they have just lost it all because they have not been able to maintain or increase their income but rather for helping folks expand and challenge their thinking.”  She referenced this era of hardship to the ‘special period’ when Cuba lost its support of the Soviet Union – “this is our ‘special period’,” she said; and it is now that we must capitalize on the moment (as surely did Cuba!), find opportunities for increased organizing in these challenging times, and be more thoughtful as movement builders.

The SOS Project will ask hundreds of organizers and base-building groups around the country through a recently launched online survey about the extent of the impact, and also innovative strategies they’re trying. The findings are sure to shed the light on the wealth of wisdom that exist among the day to day struggles of those on the forefront of building the social justice movement – and synthesize them with existing research to inform our priorities as a movement.

The Project includes a blog that hopes to promote dialog, exchanges of best practices and engage on strategies. The project will continue through Spring 2010, and findings will be released through convenings, webinars and the blog, culminating in a release event at the USSF in Detroit, MI. So stay tuned! And get involved today, by contacting me, at saba@datacenter.org.

Blog link:  http://sustainingorganizing.tumblr.com/

SOS Advisory Committee:

Lian Cheun, Khmer Girls for Action
Marjorie Fine, The Linchpin Campaign
Priscilla Hung, Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT)
Sayòkla D. Kindness-Williams, Turtle Clan, Oneida Nation of WI
Arif Mamdani , Progressive Technology Project
Denise Perry, Power U Center for Social Change