A “Yelp” For Migrant Workers

Rachel Micah-Jones interned for Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, and then worked on the Senate campaign of Oregon’s Ron Wyden, which stoked her interest in the law. While working in the Washington, D.C., public defender’s office, she saw that immigration laws ill-served her foreign-born clients. She began to think about combining her knowledge of law with its impact on real people to craft better policy.

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In 2005 she formed Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, or CDM, an international nonprofit that helps migrants fight for better working conditions and shape policy in the United States and Mexico. Since its founding the group, whose headquarters sits above an eyeglass shop in Baltimore, has recovered more than $5 million in stolen wages for the workers it represents.

In 2014, CDM unveiled Contratados, a system it calls "the Yelp for migrant workers" because it allows workers to rate employers and their recruiters anonymously.  The site offers a model for charities to tackle sensitive issues by giving people a safe place to tell their stories and call out abuses. More specifically, say experts, it’s one weapon in the war against income inequality, and one that can be wielded by a broad array of workers who feel exploited by the 21st century’s freewheeling "gig economy."

Such online communities are responding to the challenges facing traditional trade unions, suggests Aaron Sojourner, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for the Study of Labor.

"To me this is the same old purpose — workers helping one another navigate the labor market and try to raise standards — but harnessing a new communication technology," says Mr. Sojourner, who has studied the "value of employer reputation" in labor markets without contracts.

"So you don’t have to go to the [union] meeting hall anymore," he says. "It’s maybe a lower quality of communication, but it’s also a lower cost."

To learn, more, get involved and to donate visit www.cdmigrante.org/