RSVP: Gabriela Ceja gabrielaceja.morales@gmail.com

Worker centers and community-based organizations support low wage and immigrant workers, many of whom have survived a worldwide system of inequality and exploitation.

The day to day efforts from agricultural, to construction, to garment workers, and countless other kinds of laborers, are essential contributions to this society, benefiting every single person, especially the top 1%.

Protecting the rights and dignity of such an important but vulnerable population, especially under the threats of the new administration, is extremely necessary.

This Friday, we’ll come together to learn and discuss strategies to fight against discrimination and abuse, from people and organizations working towards creating effective networks to protect and improve immigrant, and all workers’ lives.

Catherine Barnett Immigrant Workers Organized: Challenges, Achievements and the Trump Times is the Director of Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), an affiliate of ROC United, a national organization advocating for fair working conditions and wages for restaurant workers. Previously, she spent more than a decade assisting micro enterprises in New York City, from start-ups and informal home-based to incorporated brick and mortar establishments.

Denise G. Vivar Acevedo is a Mexican immigrant activist living in Queens. She has been involved in organizing against deportations and for immigrant and workers’ rights through her work with various pro-immigrant community organizations, unions, and worker’s centers.

Jazmin Cruz is currently a senior at John Jay College of Criminal Justice majoring in Political Science with a double minor in Economics and Latinx Studies. She is very active on campus with student organizations including the Youth Justice Club. She has been working with Make the Road for the past 5 years, currently in the Adult Education Department.

Gonzalo Mercado, a native of Chile, is the executive director and founder of La Colmena Community Job Center and the New York coordinator of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). Gonzalo has over ten years of experience working with low wage immigrant workers through grassroots organizing, leadership and workforce development.  He has also established the first transnational project with immigrant workers from Puebla, Mexico living in Staten Island, NY that has resulted in the reunification of over 20 families after over 20 years of separation and the creation of the NewYorkTlan Transnational Festival. Most recently he facilitated the incubation of the first worker owned cooperative on Staten Island. Gonzalo also serves on the board of the New York Immigration Coalition and the North Star Fund.