Photo credit: Workers Defense Project
“Power is about knowing that you have this organization behind you and also your fellow workers—that you have a base of people who are going to stand up and say a harm against you is also a harm against me.” ”
If you follow Texas politics, you’ve probably heard of Workers Defense Project. The membership-based 501(c)(3)— which has offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston—got its start in 2002 educating and training immigrants and low-wage construction workers to advocate for themselves around issues like worker misclassification and wage theft. They quickly shifted to organizing and became a lead on issues around the lack of rest and water breaks for people working in record-breaking heat, a lack of OSHA training, and other critical issues impacting workers.
And because construction has historically been the largest and most dangerous industry in the state, Texas is a kind of real-world policy lab to test how power-building can be used in service of workers’ rights, which led Workers Defense Project to establish its 501(c)(4), Workers Defense Action Fund (WDAF), in 2015.
Over the years, Workers Defense Project and WDAF’s impact became so clear and recognizable that they started to gain interest from workers in other industries. “For the last 20 years, we have done this work and branched out into organizing in other industries because our membership was growing, and we were getting folks from other industries like warehouse sites, restaurants, domestic workers, and all types of work spaces. They saw it as an organizing and political home to build power for themselves,” explained Workers Defense Development Director Hosanna Yemiru. This year, after undergoing a strategic planning process, the organization is taking this growth in membership seriously by becoming a multi-sectoral organization with a more in depth member-led and power building model.
“If you are a low-wage worker, the chances that you are being taken advantage of by bad employers is high,” Hosanna explains. That throughline is the key to building solidarity among workers with a range of experiences so that they can leverage their collective power and advocate for more just working conditions.
Workers Defense’s (c)(3) and (c)(4) arms each do distinct work to build long term power for workers and immigrants across Texas. According to Hosanna, "They are two different avenues for people to get engaged and allow us to do year round organizing. It's a great way to identify people's strengths and plug them into the work that suits them and interests them the most.”
Encouraging members to plug in goes beyond simply engaging them through both arms of the organization. Because workers are closest to the harm done by employers, they have a valuable perspective on how to address them and build more worker-friendly workplaces. This is why Workers Defense is member-led in meaningful ways, such as worker members sitting on the board of directors, serving on programmatic committees, and determining which campaigns to run. This year, the organization is even launching a participatory budgeting process to test how members can have a say in deciding budget allocations. That, Hosanna says, is worker power. “When you are an immigrant, when you are a low-wage worker, when you're dealing with economic precarity, it can feel very demoralizing and make you feel powerless. And workers in general feel powerless because they rely on someone else to keep their jobs. Power is about knowing that you have this organization behind you and also your fellow workers—that you have a base of people who are going to stand up and say a harm against you is also a harm against me.”
This collective power in action is how Workers Defense built one of their most notable initiatives to date, Better Builder® Program. Created by construction workers more than a decade ago, the program started with on-the-ground studies of what workers needed most. That information gathering and analysis led to Better Builder® setting industry standards on issues like fair pay, workers compensation, heat safety, and required OSHA training in construction. Since its inception, the Better Builder® Program has improved over 53,000 jobs by creating higher worker standards on more than $10 billion worth of construction projects and recovered more than $130,000 in owed wages for workers on those sites. Around 39% of workers on Better Builder® sites received OSHA safety training for the first time as a result of the program, and 31% received workers’ compensation for the first time in their careers.
And the work is not done: in the coming years, Better Builder® is hoping to expand out of Central Texas as well as harness federal infrastructure and climate recovery funds to continue bringing higher standards on construction sites across Texas. “It’s showing workers and our members how you can fight a battle on many fronts and how you can organize for the same thing in many different ways and making sure people know that the fight is long term,” Hosanna explained.
Both the (c)(3) and the (c)(4) arm of the multi-entity organization have plans to continue the fight for workers rights. On the horizon for Workers Defense Project is a study of construction workers in Texas to bring in much needed data on the issues impacting construction workers and use that to advocate for policy changes at the state and local level. And WDAF is continuing its fight against SB4, a 2023 law that gives Texas law enforcement carte blanche to harass and detain anyone they suspect of being undocumented.
Workers Defense is also gearing up for a big fight at the 2025 state legislature to protect the immigrant community from more attacks and to fight against preemption, which continues to be a big factor impacting their local work and past wins. “Preemption makes it impossible for local governments to govern in any way that is helpful to workers. We know we need to work to undo past preemption efforts but also to protect what we have won, like the Solar For All money for Harris County to build its own local grid,” Hosanna said.
No matter what happens on that front or others, Workers Defense Project and WDAF will continue to show up with those most impacted to transform Texas, because if workers transform Texas, they can transform the entire country.
