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Feeding New York: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers in New York City's Food Manufacturing Industry

June 1, 2014

With some $5 billion in gross annual sales, New York City's food manufacturing industry provides the livelihoods of 14,000 workers and their families. Approximately 900 firms do business across the five boroughs of New York City. Across New York State, the industry employs 43,142 workers. Food manufacturing provides an important source of employment for those with a range of educational backgrounds and familiarity with English -- according to a 2007 study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, 70% of workers in the sector are immigrants, 72% are people of color, and 64% have less than a high school diploma. Increasingly, the industry also provides opportunities for women, though they are often paid less and face obstacles to better jobs.

Rise of the Renter Nation: Solutions to the Housing Affordability Crisis

June 1, 2014

Private homeownership cannot serve as our only model for decent, stable housing. While the most recent speculative bubble raised the proportion of homeowners nationwide to 70 percent of all households, this gain was an illusion that vanished as the market collapsed. A longer view reveals that for three decades before the bubble began in the mid-1990s, homeownership rates hovered around 64 percent, despite massive federal and market support. Further, the historic average obscures important and severe racial disparities in homeownership rates, which have never exceeded 50 percent for black and Latino populations. Yet, policy and even much of the progressive analysis of the housing crisis seem incapable of acknowledging -- much less acting on -- these realities. The result is a national dialogue about the housing crisis that all but ignores the growing renter class, where the crisis is concentrated, and retains a myopic focus on private ownership. The following report is a reality check. It attempts to redirect the conversation and provide an agenda for genuine housing security for all.

Doing the Work that Makes All Work Possible: A Research Narrative of Filipino Domestic Workers in the Tri-state Area - Executive Summary

October 23, 2010

DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association, in partnership with the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, engaged in this multi-year study to understand the plight of Filipino domestic workers living in the tri-state area. The study utilized a community-based participatory action research approach (CBPAR). From inception to release, domestic workers, their children, staff members and volunteers have been involved in multiple levels of this research. Domestic workers were purposefully involved in the analyzing, writing and designing of the report. While there are volumes of literature written about the conditions of Filipino domestic workers worldwide, few studies focus on the migration and labor of Filipino domestic workers in the US; and none have made Filipino domestic workers comprehensively integral to the CBPAR process such as this one.