Communities along the U.S.-Mexico Border must struggle on many fronts for their survival and well-being. They not only confront trade issues, militarism of the border region, and environmental injustice, but they must also look at the connections between these issues. We are working to create two reports that show the context of policies that impact border communities, to support affected peoples in their fight for justice.

Assessing How NAFTA Has Hurt Our Communities
The Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, together with its affiliates, allies and hundreds of other organizations, participated in recent actions against the World Trade Organization. In addition they called for the Border Mobilization/Border-wide protest in October all along the U.S.-Mexico border. Communities are actively mobilizing against neo-liberal trade policies and institutions, including the impending Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement. As it is NAFTA's 10th anniversary, we provided SNEEJ with information assessing NAFTA at ten years. We included statistics on job losses and increasing poverty rates as well as the detrimental effects of NAFTA on agriculture and migration. Our research shows, among other things, that worker productivity in Mexico increased while wages fell, that more than 500 maquilas left Mexico for China as the U.S. changed trade policies, that spending on environmental protections and inspections plummeted, and trade barriers fell while barriers to people crossing the border jumped.

Albuquerque Wins 13.1 million in Philips Clawbacks
Since 2000, SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) has been challenging Philips Semiconductors' demand for a multi-million dollar Industrial Revenue Bond. (See Spring 2003 projects) The DataCenter aided the campaign by documenting and analyzing the Philips plant closing in the new report How Royal Philips Negotiated a $400 million IRB in Bad Faith. SWOP and other local economic justice organizations warned the Albuquerque City Council that handing corporate subsidies and tax breaks to Philips was a bad gamble with the public treasure. To mitigate the harms done to the city by granting the Industrial Revenue Bond, SWOP successfully pressured Philips to include clawback provisions in the bond agreement, such as providing more jobs. Two years after receiving the bond, Philips picked up and relocated to Fishkill, New York - closing the Albuquerque plant and laying off almost 1,000 workers - in a move specifically timed to avoid the clawback provisions. In the report, we review these events and demonstrate that the company was in good financial health with robust profits and did not need corporate welfare. SWOP continued to pressure Philips and won a victory in August 2003 when Phillips agreed to pay $13.1 million to the City for breaking the bond agreement.

Documenting the Effects of NAFTA on Women Workers
La Mujer Obrera is a grassroots organization in El Paso, Texas that works with low-wage women workers and their families to improve their standard of living. Earlier this year, La Mujer Obrera held forums along the U.S.-Mexico border region to look at the impact of NAFTA on the lives of low-income Mexican women. We provided information about the effects of NAFTA on women workers' labor, health, and environment, so that the women would have the data to support their experiences. La Mujer Obrera is developing a network of displaced maquiladora workers and community women, most of whom migrated to the U.S.-Mexico border from the interior of Mexico to participate in the maquila economy, or in search of better wages and living conditions, and all are now facing the negative impact of globalization in their communities. Some of the women are now displaced as maquiladoras move away to pay even cheaper wages. This research was also a starting point for the DataCenter's new Challenging FTAA Research Toolkit in preparation for upcoming anti-globalization actions.

How to Operate Economic Cooperatives
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities’ Youth Leadership Project manages economic cooperatives for poor women. The youth see welfare as guaranteed income for poor women who work everyday but do not get paid for their labor or who get paid very low wages. Since welfare rights have been eroded and the political will to address this problem legislatively is weak, the youth are addressing the lack of welfare through building self-sustainable economic cooperatives that draw on the work women already do. Women who cook everyday for their families can generate income through their cooking in CAAAV’s Southeast Asian Women’s Food Cooperative. The youth are now starting to develop a Sewing Cooperative. To help them better run their cooperatives, we provided research resources for the youth to find answers to legal, financial, and operational questions.

Temp Agencies Tax to Pay for Social Services
We are involved in the California Legislative Campaign on Contingent Labor, partnering with Center on Policy Initiatives and Working Partnerships USA. The campaign's goals are to broaden the movement for fair employment in California, develop a broad-based coalition, and exert pressure on corporate employers and elected officials to put an end to the abuse of casual labor. One recent step in this campaign is the development of proposed legislation, CA AB 880, which would tax temp agencies to compensate local government for social services that low-wage temp workers require. Industry lobbyists are placing heavy pressure on the bill’s sponsors and other legislators to block it. The Campaign asked us to find data demonstrating that contingent workers greatly need social services that are paid for by local governments. We provided studies connecting temporary help agencies with increased needs for public social services related to homelessness, childcare and healthcare. We also provided examples of arguments the opposition is likely to use to oppose the bill so that the Campaign would be better prepared. We traveled to Sacramento in May to testify in support of AB 880.

Victory! Winning Equal Access to Education for People on Public Assistance
For three years, the Coalition for Access to Training and Education (CATE) has been working on a bill to allow people in New York City who receive public assistance to attend school full-time (GED and English for Speakers of Other Language classes, vocational education, and college) instead of being forced into dead-end workfare programs - the bill was passed in April when the City Council overrode the Mayor's veto by an overwhelming majority! We worked with Families United for Racial and Economic Equality of Fifth Avenue Committee, a CATE member, to help them develop their campaign. We found studies assessing the importance of education and researched NYC welfare agencies. The city ignored FUREE's requests for information, but the requests we drafted for FUREE resulted in the release of valuable statistics, which FUREE used to demonstrate the poor track record on the city-run workfare and education program. Studies show that a high school diploma or GED increases median earnings by $100-150 per week. In New York, more than 55% of all adult welfare recipients lack a high school diploma or GED, yet only 2% of people on public assistance are allowed to pursue education.

Legislation for Contingent Workers' Rights
The National Employment Law Project is working with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and North American Alliance for Fair Employment members on creating legislation to grant continent workers' increased rights, on both the federal and state levels. Contingent labor is one of the fastest growing and most exploited sectors of the labor force. We did a survey of past legislation and set up an alert service to monitor current legislation. NELP and NDLON are using this information to create a "gold standard" for national legislation they propose around day laborers and to help draft model legislation at the state level.

Southwest Conference to Oppose FTAA
COMPA (Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas) held its National Assembly in March in San Antonio, Texas and the DataCenter was invited to attend. It focused on the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). We created a fact sheet for the conference on the negative community impacts of FTAA's predecessor, NAFTA. Conference participants agreed to organize locally and support each other as allies in resistance to globalizing neo-liberal initiatives including FTAA, NAFTA, Plan Puebla-Panamá, and Plan Colombia. Upcoming actions include the WTO protest in Cancun in September and the Border-wide Mobilization on October 11. Also, there was more planning around the upcoming Bi-National Research and Policy Center, sponsored by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and Southwest Workers Union, with which the DataCenter is involved. Other groups in attendance included several organizations in Texas and COMPA members such as SouthWest Organizing Project, Kensington Welfare Rights Union, Project South, and Reclaiming Our Origins Through Struggle (ROOTS). Groups from Mexico also attended such as Union Popular Independiente and Centro Obrero de Acuña.

Just Cause Eviction Ordinance Wins in Oakland!
Oakland, California tenants scored a major victory in the November 2002 election, narrowly winning passage of a just cause eviction ordinance that requires landlords to have a valid reason for evicting renters.

Day Laborers Negotiate with Home Depot
DataCenter research is assisting the National Day Laborer Organizing Network's efforts to negotiate for Home Depot to adopt a uniform policy toward day laborers.

Philips Semiconductor Closes Albuquerque Plant
Only two years after Albuquerque granted Philips Semiconductors a $400 million Industrial Revenue Bond, Philips is transferring equipment and jobs to Fishkill, NY - resulting in the closure of the Albuquerque plant and almost one thousand workers laid off. We provided SouthWest Organizing Project with an industry analysis and chronology of Philips strategic manufacturing and plant expansion decisions.

New York Taxi Workers Struggle for Fair Wages and Benefits
Due to changes in legislation, regulated fair increases and industry subsidies benefit taxi medallion owners exclusively, while drivers end up with less take home pay and no benefits. We did in-depth background and company research on some of the larger taxi company garages to help the New York Taxi Workers Alliance decide on an effective and viable campaign for increasing workers wages and benefits through regulatory and legislative advocacy coupled with direct action.

Understanding Race, Gender and Class Disparities in California Workforce
Sacramento Valley Organizing Community organizes poor people of color communities in the Sacramento Valley area. We assisted their work to inform and engage community participants by creating talking points and fact sheets that focus on race, gender and class disparities on the workforce in California, including state and national demographic trends related to wages and benefits, health care, voting rates, home ownership, and educational attainment.

Building an Inclusive Family Agenda
To help grassroots groups establish a pro-family vision that lifts all types of families out of poverty while exposing how the conservative agenda attacks and tears families apart, Grass Roots Organizing for Welfare Leadership produced the Failing Our Families report. Using an index of measures, such as domestic violence protection and access to childcare, the report evaluates welfare and social service polices in the 50 states. We consulted with GROWL on the report and provided research support.

Economic Justice

The DataCenter's Economic Justice program works to dismantle the poverty industrial complex -- a convergence of right wing religious fundamentalism and corporate globalization that perpetuates a gendered and racialized system of poverty and economic injustice.

We provide strategic research, consultation and training to grassroots economic justice organizations, with a focus on welfare rights, contingent labor and fair employment.