A comprehensive examination of the state of worker organizing in the US in 2022.

“Worker centers craft innovative ways of raising standards for workers at the margins of existing labor and employment institutions. One example is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which successfully pressured multiple national fast food and grocery chains to (a) pay a small premium on produce, which goes to supporting farmworkers; and (b) agree to purchase from farms that have signed a Fair Food Code of Conduct, which guarantees fundamental rights to farmworkers, such as access to water and shade. Worker centers and the federations they are part of also seek to secure protections for workers through local and state policy initiatives and advocacy for broad policy change at the federal level…

The worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) model that CIW prioritizes promotes a bottom-up approach to raising industry standards by giving workers and worker organizations a direct role in the setting of standards and monitoring of compliance. 107 In 2015, CIW supported the Migrant Justice collective in its creation of Milk with Dignity, a WSR program covering Vermont dairy workers that has signed an agreement with Ben & Jerry’s, a major regional dairy buyer. More recently, CIW has engaged with Minnesota worker center Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha to create the Building Dignity and Respect Standards Council in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, bringing the WSR model to the construction industry through extensive collaboration with building trades unions.”