On Thursday, May 16, 2013, at 7:30 p.m., the Leonia-based Community of Friends in Action, Inc. (CoFiA) will hold an open meeting on current immigration reform proposals. The meeting will be held at the Presbyterian Church in Leonia, 181 Fort Lee Road in Leonia.
The speaker is Amy Gottlieb, Program Director of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Immigrant Rights Program in Newark. AFSC Immigrant Rights is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees through legal services, community organizing, and advocacy. Gottlieb is also an Adjunct Professor of Immigration Law at Rutgers Law School, and a recipient of the ACLU of New Jersey’s 2012 Legal Leadership Award and the 2012 Arthur Kinoy Award from the Rutgers Law School chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
CoFiA works closely with the AFSC as it assists migrant workers in Eastern Bergen County. One of the major issuesthe workers face is “wage theft.” Unscrupulous employers frequently hire workers for day work and then fail to pay them the money they earned. Nearly all workers interviewed for a recent research project of John Jay College of Criminal Justice reported having experienced wage theft. All workers are protected under federal and state wage and hour laws, but few are able to collect money owed even when they receive a favorable ruling.
Gottlieb will discuss implications of the current immigration reform proposal for these and other issues migrant workers face.
The meeting is free and open to the public. For more information go to www.communityoffriendsinaction.org or call 201-833-1737.