Students to Spend Winter Break Working Pro Bono with Tourist Industry Workers
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Student-led group is partnering with California Rural Legal Assistance to conduct surveys of low-wage workers.
Sixteen UC Hastings students will spend four days of their winter break with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) working with low-wage workers in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
The venture marks the first such extensive collaboration with CRLA, one of the state’s largest legal aid organizations. 2L Perla E. Parra drew on her experience working with a co-op of single mothers in South Africa while getting her master’s in public policy from Cornell to help create the project. The CRLA pro bono project has proved so popular, Parra has had to turn student volunteers away.
“There is so much we could be doing locally,” said Parra. She worked directly with CRLA’s Executive Director, Jose Padilla, over the summer, to explore the possibility of a partnership. To that end, Perla also worked with Nancy Stuart, Associate Dean of Experiential Learning, and 3L colleague Pedro Hernandez to found PILARC, the Partnership Initiative & Legal Aid to Rural Communities, an entirely student-led project that seeks to work with community groups and organizations serving rural California.
Hernandez, who interned with CRLA over the summer in their Watsonville office, collaborated with Gretchen Regenhardt, CRLA’s Directing Attorney in Watsonville, to help craft the project. The PILARC project is also co-sponsored by the Hastings Students for Immigrants’ Rights.
Students will survey low-wage workers that help support the tourist economy about wage and hour issues, health and safety conditions, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Additionally, the students will distribute “Know Your Rights” materials in and around the Watsonville and Santa Cruz areas, along with a resource list of where to get help with workplace issues. Students will potentially schedule follow-up calls with those who identify serious legal issues. Students will also have the option to continue to work with CRLA beyond the winter project to help produce a report on local conditions for low-wage workers and identify trends for future projects and advocacy.
Students are also planning to visit other legal aid organizations and meet with local lawmakers, including Assemblyman Luis A. Alejo (D-Salinas), who has led efforts to raise California’s minimum wage.
FOCUS ON LOW-WAGE TOURIST INDUSTRY WORKERS
While much progress has been made to protect the rights of farm workers in California’s fertile Central Valley, there is a growing need and thus a renewed focus on other low-wage industries: line cooks, dishwashers, bussers, wait staff, janitors, and landscapers, many of whom work for well below minimum wage.
Dean Stuart says student-led projects like PILARC allow students, regardless of the type of law they ultimately want to practice, the opportunity to do meaningful hands-on legal work in substantive areas they may not be familiar with. Most importantly, it gives them a window into the legal needs of rural communities.
Parra said the first reaction of students who have applied is, typically, “How else can I help?” “This appeals to a broad base of students,” she said. “We have 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls, from all walks of life, coming together on this project.”
The CLRA pro bono week is the first PILARC project. Parra and her supporters plan a second opportunity for students to do pro bono field work during their spring break.
Student-led group is partnering with California Rural Legal Assistance to conduct surveys of low-wage workers.
Sixteen UC Hastings students will spend four days of their winter break with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) working with low-wage workers in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.
The venture marks the first such extensive collaboration with CRLA, one of the state’s largest legal aid organizations. 2L Perla E. Parra drew on her experience working with a co-op of single mothers in South Africa while getting her master’s in public policy from Cornell to help create the project. The CRLA pro bono project has proved so popular, Parra has had to turn student volunteers away.
“There is so much we could be doing locally,” said Parra. She worked directly with CRLA’s Executive Director, Jose Padilla, over the summer, to explore the possibility of a partnership. To that end, Perla also worked with Nancy Stuart, Associate Dean of Experiential Learning, and 3L colleague Pedro Hernandez to found PILARC, the Partnership Initiative & Legal Aid to Rural Communities, an entirely student-led project that seeks to work with community groups and organizations serving rural California.
Hernandez, who interned with CRLA over the summer in their Watsonville office, collaborated with Gretchen Regenhardt, CRLA’s Directing Attorney in Watsonville, to help craft the project. The PILARC project is also co-sponsored by the Hastings Students for Immigrants’ Rights.
Students will survey low-wage workers that help support the tourist economy about wage and hour issues, health and safety conditions, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Additionally, the students will distribute “Know Your Rights” materials in and around the Watsonville and Santa Cruz areas, along with a resource list of where to get help with workplace issues. Students will potentially schedule follow-up calls with those who identify serious legal issues. Students will also have the option to continue to work with CRLA beyond the winter project to help produce a report on local conditions for low-wage workers and identify trends for future projects and advocacy.
Students are also planning to visit other legal aid organizations and meet with local lawmakers, including Assemblyman Luis A. Alejo (D-Salinas), who has led efforts to raise California’s minimum wage.
FOCUS ON LOW-WAGE TOURIST INDUSTRY WORKERS
While much progress has been made to protect the rights of farm workers in California’s fertile Central Valley, there is a growing need and thus a renewed focus on other low-wage industries: line cooks, dishwashers, bussers, wait staff, janitors, and landscapers, many of whom work for well below minimum wage.
Dean Stuart says student-led projects like PILARC allow students, regardless of the type of law they ultimately want to practice, the opportunity to do meaningful hands-on legal work in substantive areas they may not be familiar with. Most importantly, it gives them a window into the legal needs of rural communities.
Parra said the first reaction of students who have applied is, typically, “How else can I help?” “This appeals to a broad base of students,” she said. “We have 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls, from all walks of life, coming together on this project.”
The CLRA pro bono week is the first PILARC project. Parra and her supporters plan a second opportunity for students to do pro bono field work during their spring break.
Survey explores lives of Santa Cruz County's low-wage workers
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WATSONVILLE -- California Rural Legal Assistance, UC Santa Cruz and UC Hastings College of Law are launching a project in early January aimed at taking a "snapshot" of Santa Cruz County's low-wage workers.
During the project, which could take a year or more, researchers hope to survey 1,000 people working in restaurants and hotels, at car washes, as landscapers, behind fast-food counters and at off-the-books jobs.
They look to shed light on working conditions, health and safety issues, benefits, promotional opportunities and discrimination, said Gretchen Regenhardt, directing attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance in Watsonville.
"We hope the survey will get a snapshot of what it looks like to be a low-wage worker in our community," she said.
The project is being launched as a push for a hike in federal minimum wage gains steam, but Regenhardt said the timing is coincidental. She said the need for the data became apparent to her during a presentation she gave to a UCSC class last spring. It took several months to develop the survey, which is still being refined to ensure the collected data is quantifiable. UCSC researchers will do the analysis.
An exact definition of low-wage work is elusive. Steven McKay, director of the Center of Labor Studies and one of the partners in the project, said sometimes it's defined by workers making up to 125 percent of the poverty line -- currently about $11,500 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four. But that's only one threshold, he said. The gap between wages and cost of living is another.
"Santa Cruz has one of the widest disparities," McKay said.
Other factors include employment stability, the potential for career advancement, and whether a job provides full-time hours, he said. There's some data on average wages. Through the project, researchers look to provide a fuller picture, figuring out "who does the work and under what conditions."
In the past, for example, migrant workers have gone directly into agriculture, but increasingly they're bypassing the fields and going into service jobs, McKay said. Many think fast-food workers tend to be young, but often they're older, frequently heads of households.
"We'll help figure out that landscape," McKay said. "The next step is everyone can have access to that data and make of it what they will."
Regenhardt said she expects the information to be useful for policy-makers and those providing services to workers.
Her agency, which has mostly focused on farmworkers, is interested in expanding its services to nonagricultural workers who might face similar issues. The project will initially target on workers in Santa Cruz and Live Oak, but the goal eventually is to expand throughout the county.
WATSONVILLE -- California Rural Legal Assistance, UC Santa Cruz and UC Hastings College of Law are launching a project in early January aimed at taking a "snapshot" of Santa Cruz County's low-wage workers.
During the project, which could take a year or more, researchers hope to survey 1,000 people working in restaurants and hotels, at car washes, as landscapers, behind fast-food counters and at off-the-books jobs.
They look to shed light on working conditions, health and safety issues, benefits, promotional opportunities and discrimination, said Gretchen Regenhardt, directing attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance in Watsonville.
"We hope the survey will get a snapshot of what it looks like to be a low-wage worker in our community," she said.
The project is being launched as a push for a hike in federal minimum wage gains steam, but Regenhardt said the timing is coincidental. She said the need for the data became apparent to her during a presentation she gave to a UCSC class last spring. It took several months to develop the survey, which is still being refined to ensure the collected data is quantifiable. UCSC researchers will do the analysis.
An exact definition of low-wage work is elusive. Steven McKay, director of the Center of Labor Studies and one of the partners in the project, said sometimes it's defined by workers making up to 125 percent of the poverty line -- currently about $11,500 for an individual and $30,000 for a family of four. But that's only one threshold, he said. The gap between wages and cost of living is another.
"Santa Cruz has one of the widest disparities," McKay said.
Other factors include employment stability, the potential for career advancement, and whether a job provides full-time hours, he said. There's some data on average wages. Through the project, researchers look to provide a fuller picture, figuring out "who does the work and under what conditions."
In the past, for example, migrant workers have gone directly into agriculture, but increasingly they're bypassing the fields and going into service jobs, McKay said. Many think fast-food workers tend to be young, but often they're older, frequently heads of households.
"We'll help figure out that landscape," McKay said. "The next step is everyone can have access to that data and make of it what they will."
Regenhardt said she expects the information to be useful for policy-makers and those providing services to workers.
Her agency, which has mostly focused on farmworkers, is interested in expanding its services to nonagricultural workers who might face similar issues. The project will initially target on workers in Santa Cruz and Live Oak, but the goal eventually is to expand throughout the county.