NYCOSH Condemns ICE Raids and Stands in Solidarity with Immigrant Workers, WNYCOSH, the WNY Area Labor Federation and the Buffalo CLC

The workers’ health and safety movement in the United States began with a clear understanding that only workers can enforce health and safety protections on the job through sustained organizing.  Now, more than ever, we need to join together with labor unions, workers’ organizations, and communities at large to protect the right of all workers’ to a safe and healthy workplace.

NYCOSH condemns the Buffalo ICE raids and wholeheartedly supports the values echoed by WNYCOSH, the WNY Area Labor Federation and the Buffalo CLC in support of undocumented workers:

• Every worker in our country has human rights, and we want each worker to be able to exercise those rights including speaking out about health and safety concerns, regardless of immigration status.

• An injury to one is an injury to all and we cannot scapegoat fellow workers as a means to target corrupt employers.

• We must continue to advocate for workplace safety and health, higher wages and benefits for all working people and against the criminalization and deportation of immigrant workers by the Trump Administration.

To support immigrant workers as the Trump Administration works to detain and deport them, NYCOSH has published a two-pager on current conditions and urges unions and organizations to:

• Advise workers to attend health and safety trainings held by unions or trusted community organizations, and include know your rights and rapid response information in case of an immigration raid.

• File OSHA cases on behalf of workers, in order to protect anonymity from the government, if the workers choose to do so.

• Put protective language into collective bargaining agreements that disallows for the usage of E-Verify, ensures notification of immigration audits, and establish a fund to provide low-cost immigration services.

• Refer New York State workers with wage theft cases to the state department of labor or to city agencies which have committed to protect workers regardless of immigration status.

• Support the fight for expanded sanctuary measures to ensure localities do all they can to protect workers from ICE operations, in their homes, on the streets, and in their workplaces and all sensitive locations.

• Connect worker-friendly employers to campaigns declaring workplaces hate-free zones and sanctuary workplaces.

• Reject “good immigrant v. bad immigrant” narratives that pit workers against each other and continue to criminalize all immigrant workers.

• Immigrants are in danger of losing legal working status under DACA, TPS, or other programs; fighting to defend these policies must be a priority.