Research Paper Leticia M. Saucedo

Immigrant Worker Attitudes toward Workplace Organizing and Unionization
Leticia Saucedo (Affiliate in Law) with graduate researcher Jihan Kahssay (Law)

Saucedo and Kahssay are writing a chapter of a book entitled Hard Hats In Sin City: Immigrant Labor in the Residential Construction. The book describes the motivations of immigrant workers, and how these motivations give rise to distinctive attitudes about workplace safety, conditions, and concerted activity.

Researchers will explore these topics through the lens of a set of interviews  conducted with immigrant workers in the residential construction industry in Las Vegas, Nevada. In particular, their work will provide insight into the ways that immigrant workers accommodate their attitudes and behaviors to the realities that face them in the workplace. The chapter explores interviewees’ responses to collective action, worker support and unionization efforts in the workplace and discuss the obstacle they perceive to collective action. Saucedo and Kahssay also analyze union leaders’ perceived obstacles to organizing immigrant workers.