Labor

As unionization efforts by Congressional staffers continue on Capitol Hill, Latino Rebels asked senators this week the best way for staffers to approach them about forming a union.

There remains no formal legally recognized right for Congressional staffers to unionize, at least not one that has been implemented, though there is a framework in the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 that remains unimplemented. Still, a strike by Hill staffers would be unprecedented.

Support is growing in Congress for the “Day Without Immigrants” protest planned for Monday, February 14. The rationale behind the protest led by TikTok star Carlos Eduardo Espina is that immigrant labor underwrites Valentine’s Day every year.

The renegade Instagram account now boasts over 75,00 followers, nearly three times the following they had a week ago.

On Friday, classrooms across Puerto Rico continued to sit empty as thousands of public school teachers protested at the foot of the Capitolio, home to Puerto Rico’s legislature, and then walked to the governor’s official residence, La Fortaleza, to demand fair pay and pensions.

Carlos Eduardo Espina has over 2.4 million followers on TikTok and over 88,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. Now the 23-year-old is asking immigrants, in Spanish and English, to disrupt Valentine’s Day this year by not showing up to work, school, or the stores.

The LIBRE Initiative and its partner, Americans for Prosperity Action (a Koch Industries-funded group), withdrew its endorsement of Pete Flores, who is running in Texas Senate District 24. The withdrawal came after the candidate soundly rejected LIBRE’s initial endorsement.

Workers at a General Motors plant in northern Mexico were voting Tuesday on whether to form one of the first truly independent auto labor unions in Mexican history.

Latinx adults are more likely to have done gig work than their Black, Asian, and white counterparts, according to a study by the Pew Research Center published in December. About 30 percent have earned money from an online app platform.

The term “living in the shadows” is something I’m familiar with, having grown up waiting for some type of path that would allow me to become a legal resident. I did so while surviving a relationship that involved domestic violence.

The fact that, in the last 50 years, any idea that questions the status quo has been stigmatized with the discriminatory epithet of “Communist,” “Leftist” or “socialist” is evidence that the political spectrum has moved so far to the right.

On Wednesday morning, Latino Rebels reported on an incident at Mi Familia Vota’s office in Las Vegas, where local media and sources close to the situation say at least nine people resigned last week. In response, the organization sent Latino Rebels the following statement.

Take it from me, an early childhood educator who working parents depend on to care for their little children: the funding in the Build Back Better Act provides the only true investment we’ve seen for supporting the littlest members of our society and the workers who care for them.

Looking for more information on the resignations and the conditions within Mi Familia Vota’s national organization, Latino Rebels spoke to three sources with years of experience in the “non-profit-industrial complex,” as one put it—all of whom asked that they remain anonymous.

On average, Latino workers earn 73 cents for every dollar earned by a white worker. If Latinos were paid as much as white people, Latinos would see their income rise by 37 percent, and an additional 1.1 million Latinos would join the middle class.

Most Mexicans in Chicago get their masa from El Milagro. But now that workers at the company are in a dispute with management, this December presents a moral dilemma concerning the tradition of making tamales for Christmas.

“We need workers in this economy,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told Latino Rebels. “(If) you want to grow the GDP then workers are at the heart of that. And this is one path to get the workers here in the United States able to come out of the shadows, take these jobs, pay taxes, and help us grow the economy.”

We follow a group of drivers who are mobilizing across California and using their own technology to take on Big Tech.

Latino Rebels Radio: November 18, 2021

Immigrant rights organizers say alt-right instigators arrived Tuesday night at their ongoing 11-day protest in Times Square looking to intimidate undocumented rally-goers.

The pandemic made it clear that if the nation truly values the essential role that workers play, we must make it easy for people to organize their workplaces and demand better conditions.