“The question is, given the substantial number of American workers interested in organizing their workplaces, how labor—especially in sectors like construction with vulnerable workers—can collectively redress the pernicious act of wage theft.

The construction workers and organizers in Minneapolis who rallied with Sanchez and Monica Bravo seek to provide more immediate relief for non-union workers by implementing a Worker-Driven Social Responsibility (WSR) model on their sites. WSR recognizes that when government agencies fail to enforce labor laws or private firms adopt “corporate social responsibility” pledges for show, it is often because little worker input was included to begin with.

While the most obvious solution would be to organize a union, the WSR approach is designed for workers who might not have that option. For example, farmworkers, who originally designed the WSR program, are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act. As a result, it is extremely difficult for them to ratify a union vote.

Using boycotts, protests, and pressure from shareholders, workers can leverage large brands to sign on to a WSR agreement.

The WSR places workers directly in charge of safety, dignity, and fair payment: Employees form a workers’ organization that will monitor and enforce labor laws in their workplace, and, in turn, corporations sign legally binding agreements that require subcontractors or other firms in their supply chain to abide by specific standards.

These standards are then enforced by the workers via workplace audits and educating co-workers on their labor rights. Failure for those at the top of the supply chain—the buyers of, say, tomatoes or garments—results in economic repercussions like boycotts and the public exposure of buyers and sellers alike.

“At the center of the code is a strict no-retaliation policy so that workers can not only learn about their rights but sort of lead in the defense of their rights, watch out for what’s happening with their neighbor, call the complaint line, do that work,” explained the Rev. Doug Mork, executive director of the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council, an offshoot of the WSR model designed specifically for the Twin Cities’ construction industry.

This bodes well for workers like Daniel Sanchez, who expressed concern that speaking out against the subcontractor that robbed him had hurt his ability to get work on other construction sites.

The council is a part of the broader WSR network that includes farmers in Florida, dairy laborers in Vermont, and textile workers in South Africa and Bangladesh. Some of the workers Sanchez organized with even went to Immokalee, Florida—where disaffected migrant [farmworkers] first conceived WSR—to learn how to transform the standards of their own industry.”