We’ve all seen groups of day laborers congregating on a street corner, hoping to be hired for a job. These workers, as well as those in this country on temporary work visas, are taking a big risk: They have to trust that the people who hire them will pay them as promised.
A new social media site, Contratados.org (the name roughly translates as “hired hands”), aims to offer some insurance against dishonest employers to day laborers.
On the website, workers can look for a job, write and read reviews of companies, bosses or recruiters, learn about their rights and read about news developments of relevance to them. For those who don’t have Internet access, there’s even the ability to leave a review via the telephone.
These Yelp-like reviews can help workers avoid bad work situations and find fair ones. For instance, one man who regularly employs undocumented workers recently received two one-star ratings. One reviewer says that this man had him working without a salary for two months, and in exchange for his work, promised a tourist visa. Instead, he gave him a fake visa, which resulted in deportation. On the other hand, another reviewer employed by a seafood market in Louisiana praised his bosses in a five-star review. “It’s a good company and a pure good thing,” the anonymous reviewer writes.
The reviews can be anonymous (which could, of course, result in the posting of falsehoods and exaggerations), but as with Yelp, the more reviews that accumulate, the more the consensus can be trusted.
Michelle Chen of The Nation spoke to Alissa Ecarce of Contratados, who says, “The beauty of the Contratados.org employer review feature is that it does not rely on any legal mechanism — the point is for workers to share information with one another so that they can make more informed employment decisions. Both guest workers and undocumented workers work within a system where they are at a power disadvantage due to their status, and we hope that Contratados.org will be a tool that all workers can use to increase their power in the labor market.”
This website, which offers a contemporary solution to an age-old problem, could prevent a lot of low-income workers from experiencing needless misery.
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Tag: Spanish Speakers
Can Comic Books Help Spread Public Safety Messages?
It’s a paradox of public safely: often those most in need of learning about health and safety risks and solutions are the most difficult to reach. They may not even be able to read.
The answer may be pictures — they’re worth 1,000 words, after all. Specifically, comic books, with easily understood drawings and messages that appeal across generations.
Enter Miguel Lopez and his wife, Helen Anaya, of Chandler, Ariz. Lopez used to work for a bank, and he remembered counterparts in Mexico using comic books to teach customers about saving and investing. The comics reached those who couldn’t read well.
Lopez and Anaya thought, why not bring this idea to the U.S.?
And so a genre that typically entertains kids and collectors may now reach a whole new audience — with some of the most important lessons of their lives.
The couple launched Storynamics in 2006, and they’ve hooked up with governments, schools, and other organizations to produce comic books about serious topics: hand washing, the West Nile Virus, water safety, diabetes, even how to deal with bat bites. The comics are printed in Spanish and English, with pictures to help reach those who struggle to read.
“One of the… significant challenges we are trying to address with the stories is literacy about health issues,” Lopez told Aaron Rop of AZCentral. “When you are not comfortable reading, you miss out on many things and many of those things are important to your health.”
Storynamics has produced and distributed over 240,000 comic books in 16 states. The comic book approach appeals to many local governments, because they can provide them to families via their children. Their appeal to kids is universal.
Among the project’s smart moves: the kids get the books in school, then bring them home and beg their parents to read. Few parents can resist their kid coming home excited about a gift from school, begging for Mom or Dad to tell a story.
“They go to their parents and they say, ‘Dad can you read this for me? Look at what they gave me at school’,” Lopez told Rop.
With the help of Storynamics comic books, soon it could be the kids helping their parents to eat right, exercise and get to bed early.
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