Advocacy Projects and Community Collaboration

JOB RE-ENTRY FOR FORMERLY INCARCERATED PERSONS

• WERC faculty and students are working in collaboration with several organizations to address job re-entry barriers for people with past criminal convictions. Along with the National Employment Law Project, All of Us or None (an organization of formerly incarcerated individuals), the East Bay Community Law Center "Clean Slate" practice, and others, we organized a 2007 statewide convening on both employment and voting rights. The convening was generously funded by the Rosenberg Foundation. The collaborative group is also working on legislative proposals to expand job opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

• WERC had a major victory in September 2008 when the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees voted to change the college's hiring policies to comply with an Education Code requirement that it consider rehabilitation of job applicants with past drug convictions. WERC's former graduate fellow Nira Geevargis and students Margarita Calpotura ('06), Paul Hogarth ('06), Emily Hobbins ('07), and Kara Farina ('08) helped bring about this change by participating in presentations to the CCSF Board, meetings with the Chancellor, legal research, or drafting proposed policy revision. Read more here. The ACLU of Northern California and All of Us or None joined forces with WERC to challenge the CCSF practices, and WERC continues to monitor compliance with new policies.

• WERC Director and Professor Marci Seville served on the advisory committee for a report on barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated women issued in December 2008 by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the UC Berkeely School of Law. Read the report: A Higher Hurdle: Barriers to Employment for Formerly Incarcerated Women. For more information on the original research projects at the Center for Social justice, see http://www.law.berkeley.edu/1094.htm.

COMMENTS ON THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT.

• In February 2007, WERC submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Labor in response to the agency's request for information on the Family and Medical Leave Act. More than 80 law professors from around the U.S, signed on to WERC's comments. Clinic students Yaromil Ralph (May '07) and Emily Hobbins (May '07) helped prepare the comments by researching both the legislative history of FMLA and recent sociological studies about the benefits of family leave. Read WERC's letter to Department of Labor.

GARMENT ADVOCACY

• Wins Garment Workers: In 2001, three San Francisco garment factories (Wins garment), shut their doors and declared bankruptcy after failing to pay wages to hundreds of immigrant workers. The Clinic joined with Sweatshop Watch and the Chinese Progressive Association to advocate for the workers. Through our collective advocacy, nearly $1 million was paid to the workers from a state garment fund established under the California Labor Code to compensate workers that cannot collect wages in situations like the Wins factory shutdown. After a lengthy FBI investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice also indicted the factory owners. In 2007, a federal jury convicted the owners of multiple counts of conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering in the operation of the Wins factories. The owners were now serving federal prison terms on those convictions.

• Report on Enforcement of Laws Governing the Garment Industry: The clinic was involved for several years in legislative and regulatory work that resulted in the passage of AB 633, the garment accountability bill, and the regulations implementing AB 633. From 2004 through 2006, WERC participated in a collaborative project funded by the Racial Justice Collaborative, working with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Sweatshop Watch, the Asian Law Caucus, and the L.A. Garment Worker Center. In August 2005, the project issued a study entitled Reinforcing the Seams: Guaranteeing the Promise of California's Landmark Anti-Sweatshop Law. The study documents the successes and short-falls of what many had hoped would prove to be the country's strongest anti-sweatshop legislation, Assembly Bill 633 (AB 633), enacted in 1999. See the full report.

AMICUS CURIAE PARTICIPATION

WERC and its professors participate actively as a "friend of the court" or amicus curiae in cases of importance to California workers. These cases include:

Brinker Restaurant v. Superior Court, Case No. S166350 (Ca. Supreme Court 2009).
Strauss v. Horton, 46 Cal. 4th 364 (2009).
Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. Edmondson, Case Nos. 08-6127, 08-6128 (10th Cir. 2008).
Arizona Contractors Association, Inc. v. Candelaria, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 19723 (9th Cir. 2008).
Olson v. Automobile Club of Southern California, 42 Cal. 4th 1142 (2008).
Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., 40 Cal. 4th 1094 (2007).
Corrales v. Bradstreet, 153 Cal. App. 4th 33 (2007).
Prachasaisoradej v. Ralphs Grocery Co., Inc., 42 Cal. 4th 217 (2007).
Yanowitz v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., 36 Cal. 4th 1028 (2005).
Reynolds v. Bement, 36 Cal. 4th 1075 (2005).
Sav-On Drug Stores, Inc. v. Superior Court, 34 Cal. 4th 319 (2004).
Beck v. Boeing CO., 60 Fed. Appx. 38; 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 3619 (9th Cir. 2003).
Smith v. Rae-Venter Law Group, 29 Cal. 4th 345 (2002).
Cummings v. Automobile Club Of Southern Calif., 2002 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 8723 2002.
Kohler v. Inter-Tel Techs., 244 F.3d 1167 9th cir 2001.
Post v. Palo/Haklar & Assocs., 23 Cal. 4th 942 (2000).
Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Prods. Co., 23 Cal. 4th 163 (2000).
Morillion v. Royal Packing Co., 22 Cal. 4th 575 (2000).

LEGAL AND COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS

The Clinic often works in collaboration with other legal and community-based organizations on direct client representation, impact litigation, and amicus curiae briefs.

• California Rural Legal Assistance http://www.crla.org/
• Coalition of Low Wage Immigrant Worker Advocates (CLIWA)
• La Raza Centro Legal
• Filipino Community Center
• Asian Pacific American Law Center (APALC) and the LA Garment Workers Center
• Chinese Progressive Association
• Equal Rights Advocates,
• All of Us or None, the National Employment Law Project/Second Chance Labor Project, and the East Bay Community Law Center Clean Slate Project
• Employment Law Center - Legal Aid Society of San Francisco
• Asian Law Caucus
• Young Workers United