About us

Welcome to CWC

The Connecticut Worker Center is a grassroots community worker center, whose mission is to support immigrants, both men and women, on issues of workplace and immigrant rights. Through organizing, advocacy, education, leadership training, capacity building, civic participation, and policy analysis we promote our community’s exercise of its civil and human rights, and a more just society for all.

About us

We began supporting workers in 2012 as the Brazilian Worker Center of Bridgeport, a branch of Massachusetts’ Brazilian Worker Center. Through our organizing work, described below, our base grew to include people from across the state and from Connecticut’s West Indian, Latino, Haitian, and Polish communities. In  2019 we decided to become an independent organization. The Connecticut Worker Center (CWC) received its 501c3 designation in 2021.

Since 2012, the domestic workers who lead CWC have spearheaded the movement to secure new labor rights for Connecticut’s 55,000 domestic workers. In 2015, because of their efforts, Connecticut became the 9th state in the U.S. to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Since then, our members have trained their peers on their rights, advocated for robust enforcement of the law, and also won new protections for domestic workers under the anti-discrimination regulations of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. This Spring, we had another legislative victory, successfully advocating for a law that requires employers to provide domestic workers with information about their rights and establishing an education and training grant program to support domestic workers’ rights enforcement.

Protecting immigrants workers. Promoting tolerance and acceptance of all.

Timeline

The BWC has been central to passing two laws already in Connecticut as part of the campaign for a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights that we first introduced there in 2012.

In 2014, the General Assembly legislatively established a Domestic Worker Task Force on which the BWC had three representatives, including two of the worker representatives, and the non-profit advocacy representative. We also established a larger domestic worker advisory group that advised the Task Force.

In 2015 the Domestic Workers Campaign was instrumental in passing a new law allowing workers to file discrimination and sexual harassment complaints with CT’s Human Rights & Opportunities Commission, reversing a 75-year old legal exclusion.

In 2014-15, we continued to work as members of Governor Malloy’s Domestic Worker Task Force, which designed more extensive legislation for introduction in 2016-17 for moving further into establishing a wider Bill of Rights for CT home care workers. We are continuing to organize, to fight anti-worker bills that are introduced to roll back labor rights, and working with many allies widen further the rights of Connecticut domestic workers.

These activities are part of our grassroots community support for immigrant workers across the state, which also includes education and training, leadership development, and general workplace- and immigration- related support. When the pandemic hit, we supported our members with emergency relief funds and helped our state government and social service agencies distribute rental relief funds to our undocumented community. The number of workers we serve grew substantially. We are now focused on bringing new members into our training and organizing programs and on building the infrastructure of our newly independent nonprofit, so it reflects the significance of our work and the power of our members. 

CWC supports our immigrant communities in addressing the immediate problems in their lives and jobs as well as the real causes of those problems. We provide a safe environment for people to learn together about their civil and human rights, connect to trusted allies and resources, and organize with their peers to change our state’s culture and laws and fight against economic and political marginalization.

Copyright © 2021 – Brazilian Worker Center Connecticut | All rights reserved.

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