Members meet with Secretary of Labor

CCI members Elvira Guerrero and Nataly Espinosa had the opportunity to participate in a Latino Leaders Roundtable with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis held at the United Way in Des Moines last Friday.

The meeting focused on listening to concerns and questions from Latino leaders who are in touch with the Latino workforce every day.

Elvira and Nataly told Secretary Solis that we have been working closely with the Dept. of Labor’s wage & hour division since 2010 through our organizing to tackle wage theft - including recovering more than $130K in wages for workers. We acknowledged DOL’s good work and asked Secretary Solis to consider allocating more resources to the DOL’s district office in Iowa.

We also told her that discrimination at the workplace targeting Latinos is still a serious problem, especially with the emergence of “English-only” rules imposed by some workers, which violates Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act.

Solis commended our work and said to keep coming forth with these issues, as this is the only way we can keep solving them.