On Aug 12, 2024, Funders for a Just Economy, Workforce Matters, Ford Foundation, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Chicagoland Workforce Funders Alliance, Raise the Floor Alliance, Arriba Las Vegas, Warehouse Workers for Justice, and the International Association of Bridge Structural Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers co-sponsored an educational webinar on Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE).
Featuring keynote remarks by U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, webinar participants heard from immigrant workers, worker centers, and current funders about how labor-based immigration relief has enhanced efforts to uphold workplace rights, build lasting worker power, and promote labor law compliance. Philanthropic partners learned about opportunities to align and scale this critical work at the intersection of worker rights, worker voice, and workforce development.
The DALE program gives workers the confidence to report workplace violations and abuse without fear of immigration-based retaliation, since workers may, on a case-by-case basis, obtain work permits of up to four years while the violations are being investigated. Launched in 2021, the Acting Secretary emphasized that the DALE program is a tool that enables the government to enforce labor law, hold employers accountable, and protect the rights of working people.
An infographic from the Department of Homeland Security (below) illustrates how DALE works:
Acting Secretary Su and speakers from Arriba (Las Vegas), Warehouse Workers for Justice (Illinois), and the AFL-CIO shared many examples of how the DALE program has made it possible for workers to bring to light experiences of unsafe working conditions, withheld wages, health and safety violations, discrimination, and harassment and abuse. In all of these cases, employers had weaponized workers’ immigration status to inflict flagrant violations of labor law, and DALE made it possible for workers to come forward and seek recourse without fear.
As a result of the investigations, workers have won back wages and other compensation, and these benefits accrue not only to DALE recipients but to all impacted workers. In addition, as Rosario Ortiz from Arriba and Lorena Prieto from Warehouse Workers for Justice emphasized, workers gain greater security and in many cases become community leaders and organizers who are able to encourage others experiencing unsafe workplaces to come forward. Eric Dean from the AFL-CIO added that ironworkers have assisted in DALE actions and have connected these efforts to the union’s work to create further protections for workers.
Philanthropic partners Matt Bruce of the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance and Livia Lam from the Ford Foundation described their investments in DALE as being immediately impactful and being among the most promising strategies at the intersection of worker, immigrant, and labor justice.
Livia and Matt, as well as our other speakers, noted that a key barrier to doing more of this work is the lack of funding, including funding to help other cities and organizations learn about and implement DALE and investigate labor abuses to help other workers. The organizations doing this work need funding for outreach, legal support, and organizing, and philanthropy can play a key role here.
The DALE program helps to create safer workplaces for all by empowering those impacted by first-hand violations to come forward and by giving them a formal role in the investigation process, yielding dividends for communities and the workforce economy. Over the past three years, the organizations represented on the webinar and their partners have helped submit over 1,000 deferred action applications, resulting in thousands of years of equal living without imminent fear of deportation.
