Strengthening the Voice of California’s New Workers: Labor and Community Efforts to Improve Worker Health and Safety

Authors:   Marcos Vargas , Paul Ong

Date: October 10, 2001

Project: Strengthening the Voice of California’s New Workers: Labor and Community Efforts to Improve Worker Health and Safety

This research project is based on the belief that public policy must respond to the problems of how changes in the new economy adversely affect the health of workers and their families. Despite California’s recent business boom, structural changes are reproducing low-wage and contingent employment and increasing worker health and safety risks. A growing segment of California’s working families is struggling simply to make ends meet, and minorities and immigrants are disproportionately over-represented in this labor market niche. In our political economy, societal institutions can and must play a role in promoting better public policy, and organizations that provide a collective voice for workers are central to improving work conditions and access to health care.