Law & Social Policy Legacy Award

New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (NMCLP) is being recognized for its strong record of advancing systemic change for low-wage workers in New Mexico through litigation, policy advocacy, education, and community engagement. For over 25 years, NMCLP has worked directly with workers and community groups to build a powerful, collaborative movement for lasting change. In the process, it has notched historic victories for low-wage workers that helped extend basic rights to farmworkers, improve enforcement of wage theft laws, and usher in the state’s first statewide paid sick leave law.

We are incredibly honored to be the 2023 recipient of the Law & Social Policy Award. The award and recognition will help us build even more momentum and support as we continue to work with the community to advance economic justice in New Mexico.

— Sireesha Manne, Executive Director, New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty

Northwest Workers’ Justice Project (NWJP) was selected for championing Oregon’s low-wage, immigrant, and contingent community by providing training to workers about employment and organizing rights, litigating major cases, and undertaking policy advocacy. These efforts have led to victories including the recovery of over $6 million in lost wages and damages for low-income workers across the state and policy reflective of comprehensive workplace protections. NWJP has started several collaborations – Oregon Coalition to Stop Wage Theft, Safe Jobs Oregon, and the Low Wage Worker Legal Network – creating pathways towards equitable and systemic change in the workplace.

We are deeply appreciative of this award because it recognizes the impact
that an organization like ours can have by empowering vulnerable workers.
We believe that true, long-lasting systemic change in the workers’ rights
movement must be led by our most vulnerable workers to improve the future
for all working families.

— Corinna Spencer-Scheurich, Director, Northwest Workers’ Justice
Project

Award Runner-Up: Workers Defense Project: Workers Defense Project is a statewide member-based organization building power for low-wage, immigrant workers across Texas. Through education, organizing and direct services, we empower workers to win fair, safe jobs and become effective advocates for themselves and their communities. By creating a community-led organization for workers’ rights, we seek to stop this cycle of negligence and empower construction workers to secure the basic workplace rights they are entitled to, from paid sick leave to humane working conditions. We nurture a community that can protect its own and ultimately change the way the construction industry is run. In doing so, we work each day to create a more just system that recognizes the power that construction workers hold.

Center for WorkLife Law: The Center for WorkLife Law is an advocacy and research organization at UC Hastings Law that seeks to advance racial, gender, and class equity. At WorkLife Law, we address inequality at a structural level by developing and implementing concrete, evidence-based interventions in schools and workplaces and changing public policy at the state and national levels.

Economic Progress Institute: The Economic Progress Institute – formerly The Poverty Institute – is a nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to improving the economic well-being of low- and modest-income Rhode Islanders. Since the organization was founded by Linda Katz and the late Nancy Gewirtz in 1999, it has become a respected authority on issues impacting the economic vitality of our residents and our state.

Georgia Justice Project: Georgia Justice Project strengthens our community by demonstrating a better way to represent and support individuals in the criminal justice system and reduce barriers to reentry. GJP promotes innovative change through direct legal representation, policy advocacy, education, and coalition building.

Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California: Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA) promotes self-determination in the Latino community in Southern California politically, culturally, and economically using popular education methodology. IDEPSCA organizes and educates low-income community members who want to resolve problems in their own communities.

Make the Road New York: Make the Road New York (MRNY) builds the power of immigrant and working class communities to achieve dignity and justice through organizing, policy innovation, transformative education, and survival services. We have over 24,000 members and operate five community centers in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island and Westchester.

National Legal Advocacy Network: The National Legal Advocacy Network (NLAN) is a legal non-profit organization that believes in shifting the balance of power towards greater equity in our economy and society through organizing, empowering systematically marginalized people and challenging entrenched racial discrimination, sexual harassment and exploitative workplace practices and predatory business schemes. NLAN is dedicated to leveraging legal resources to enhance the capacity and sustainability of the low-wage worker movement through community focused lawyering, worker center support and strategic litigation.

New Mexico Worker Organizing Collaborative: The New Mexico Worker Organizing Collaborative (NMWOC) will implement strategies to improve the health and economic security of low-wage workers and their families by designing policy initiatives around Medicaid buy-in or similar affordability plans, and creating a statewide environment that is conducive to earned sick pay and protections for individual workers. NMWOC is led by Somos Un Pueblo.

Public Justice Center: Founded in 1985, the Public Justice Center (PJC) uses legal tools to challenge poverty and racial inequity in Maryland and beyond. The PJC is a civil legal aid office that provides advice and representation to low-income clients, advocates before legislatures and government agencies, and collaborates with community and advocacy organizations.

United for Respect Education Fund: United for Respect Education Fund supports a multiracial and multigenerational movement of working people who are dreaming big, winning big and building an economy that allows us to live and work with dignity. We elevate the voices of those employed in the retail economy to call on industry leaders and policymakers to transform jobs so people can lead safe and economically-secure lives.

What’s Next Washington: What’s Next Washington is an organization of formerly incarcerated individuals and allies working to improve the ability of people with conviction histories to reintegrate into society and achieve longterm economic stability. We believe every person has a right to a life of dignity and the right to full participation in society; those closest to a problem are closest to the solution; and collaboration with stakeholders leads to innovation.

We are incredibly honored to be the inaugural recipient of the Law & Social Policy Award. This award and the recognition that comes with it will help us continue to draw attention to the plight of migrant workers and the importance of improving their work conditions in the U.S.

— Rachel Micah-Jones, founder and executive director of CDM

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