Much has been written about the severe resource limitations for labor standards enforcement in the United States. As labor and employment researcher Annette Bernhardt and colleagues outlined in 2008, the current era of workplace rights is one where an increasing number of employers are “breaking, bending, or evading” protections in an array of statutory arenas. In part this happens because the U.S. workplace has become fissured, as fewer corporations are direct employers, and an array of outsourcing schemes have made enforcing workplace rights difficult. The lack of government investment in the enforcement of labor laws certainly promotes the exploitation of workers, especially those who are unauthorized.
As a result, labor scholars and advocates have called for co-enforcement efforts that bring civil society organizations into the process, thus extending the reach that labor agencies lack, in vulnerable communities in particular. Immigrant workers are a key target in these efforts given their concentration in low-wage industries rife with disproportionate levels of wage theft, sexual harassment, exploitation of minors, and workplace injuries. Undocumented workers especially face heightened exposure to some workplace hazards.
Given these realities, another less-understood actor has long played an important role in shaping the landscape of worker advocacy, especially in places where few other advocates have significant resources and power. The Mexican consular network – which counts 52 offices across the United States - has for the last two decades played a formal role in coordinating with U.S. government agencies to extend outreach efforts and encourage workers to come forward when they face a problem at work. In our book Scaling Migrant Worker Rights, we chronicle how this partnership came to be, and detail the reality of implementing these efforts on the ground.
Stemming from a 2004 memorandum of understanding between the Mexican Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Department of Labor, this formal partnership was the culmination of years of grassroots advocacy by immigrant worker advocates and proactive government officials in several key immigrant destinations. By 2008, this binational effort culminated in an institutionalized, yearly Labor Rights Week that – for at least one week a year on the heels of Labor Day – showcases the Mexican government’s commitment to the rights of their nationals in the United States. In some consular jurisdictions, Labor Rights Week was just one of many efforts continuing throughout the year that represent deep commitments by labor unions, worker centers, attorneys, immigrant advocacy groups and federal, state, and local agencies. Together, these groups collaborate towards increasing low-wage immigrant workers’ knowledge of their rights and how to file claims.
This yearly effort is not without challenges. The things that typically make a diplomatic bureaucracy distinctive and powerful are also what frustrate grassroots activists. Personnel turnover regularly, institutional memory is lost, priorities shift. The parts of the consular bureaucracy dedicated to labor rights efforts – including the Department of Protection – also contend with a myriad of other urgent community demands. Transnational families struggle to get child support across borders, prisoners demand consular access, and the dead must be transported home (an expensive and complicated bureaucratic feat). An immigrant’s $500 in stolen wages, broken arm from a fall on a construction site, or fired in the midst of an organizing campaign – replete with threats to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement – compete for attention from overworked and understaffed consular officials.
Despite the need for a cross-border co-enforcement approach, there are many challenges to bridging the institutional cultures of Mexican diplomats, U.S. labor agencies, and civil society groups. Perhaps the biggest clash has been calls to intervene in immigration enforcement policies that devastate immigrant communities, but which consular diplomats can rarely do anything to ameliorate. Immigrant activists often see Mexican consulates, and the physical spaces they inhabit, as a manifestation of state violence, a government that is unable to address key social issues such as femicide, and one that regularly mistreats visitors to the consulate. Yet, on the ground in the U.S., two key partners who have particular stakes in collaborating with consular officials are labor organizations and legal services providers.
For labor groups, consuls serve as influential conveners who can bring together stakeholders that may not otherwise respond to requests from outside of government. The Mexican Consulate has also served as the “elder brother” of the broader Latin American consular corps providing the leadership, space, and funds to roll out a range of outreach initiatives. Labor unions have also relied on consular offices to provide information sessions for captive audiences waiting to receive services. Those settings are seldom a place an immigrant wants to be, and in fact are the subject of endless complaints following racist and classist interactions with consular officials. Yet, compared to a U.S. government building that may raise concerns about surveillance for undocumented immigrants, the consulate provides at least a neutral setting to obtain widely disseminated information in Spanish from a trusted source. Finally, in rural and suburban settings in places like the Midwest and California’s Central Valley that are located further away from the urban core where labor agencies and community groups are often centered, consular outposts are sometimes the only game in town.
Photo by Shivendu Shukla via Unsplash.
Beyond labor education, and the core task of informing immigrant workers of their rights, community advocates have also turned to the Mexican consular network as a resource for bolstering legal advocacy. In many communities, U.S.-government-funded legal aid groups are unable to serve undocumented immigrants, and in few areas are labor and employment law services on the menu at all. Some local groups collaborate with a consulate’s Ventanilla Laboral, which is an arm of the consulate that helps triage worker complaints. The complexity of this service varies across the consular network, but can work via contracted attorneys or well-oiled referral networks to connect underserved immigrants to a legal advocate. In addition to Know Your Rights Trainings, and in some jurisdictions a staffed hotline, consular officials can gain access to labor agencies that community groups often lack. In a recently reported victory, a phone call to the EMPLEO hotline in California resulted in the collection of $118,000 in back wages and damages by the DOL for dishwashers, cooks and serves at a Florida restaurant. As diplomatic institutions operating under a formal letter of agreement with U.S. government agencies, select cases can benefit from this additional coordination. In cases where an immigrant has returned to Mexico – either through deportation or voluntary return – consuls become critical to ensuring that restitution reaches the claimant. Even for mundane run-of-the-mill cases where the immigrant is still in the U.S., the consulate becomes an important resource to obtain government issued identification required to collect their judgment. In cases where work authorization becomes available, consular-issued identification is often the first step in applying.
To be sure, the role of consulates in the co-enforcement process is not without its challenges. Labor organizations also involved in worker organizing have long complained that diplomats are unsupportive partners. Diplomats are limited by their vow to remain neutral as a guest on foreign soil, often refusing to take strong public stances on the injustices suffered by immigrant workers. To be sure, there have been notable exceptions, particularly during the Trump administration’s vile campaigns frequently peppered with anti-immigrant rhetoric. But on the whole, diplomats are careful to avoid community mobilizations in their formal capacity, though at rare times some can be spotted marching and protesting during their personal time.
Despite clashing institutional cultures and organizational missions, co-enforcement – i.e. shepherding immigrant workers through an otherwise confusing and scary government bureaucracy – is where consulates have some of the best potential for advancing immigrant worker rights. What they lack in charismatic leadership and inspiring calls to action, consular offices make up in resources, bureaucratic systems that coordinate well with the U.S. system of administrative law, and established relationships that garner respect from counterparts in power.
In its second decade, this partnership has become an increasingly important resource, even as the original excitement has arguably waned. Ongoing challenges persist: turnover makes sustainability challenging, the need for local training persists as the legal landscape shifts, and the wide variability across the 52 jurisdictions creates an additional layer of inequality for Mexican immigrants. However, as new workplace protections and sources of relief come online for undocumented workers, the consulate will remain an important and necessary partner to ensure that workplace protections are widely disseminated and enforced.
The book Scaling Migrant Worker Rights is available for purchase and as a free download here.
