About us

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.

Staff

Nelli Jara
Executive Director
Silvia Salinas
Worker’s Rights and Community Advocat
Florecienda Montenegro Community outreach Worker Leader
Rosa Rodriguez
Worker Leader
NDWA Home Care Council Worker
Elza Monteiro
Portuguese Worker Leader

Board of Directors

Javier Chacon
President
Byron Lucero
Vice President
Gianina Serrano
Secretary
Dionisio Camayo
Treasurer
Anarilis Tochimani
Board member
Antonia Da Silva
Board member
Ana Lizeth Elizondo
Board member
Enith Rodrigues
Board member

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.