Larry Shinagawa
Larry Shinagawa
2009 APALA hearing
On November 13, 2009, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance convened the first National Asian Pacific American Worker’s Rights Hearing, a historic gathering of over 200 APA trade unionists and community allies. The hearing was convened in the Samuel Gompers room of the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington D.C. APAs nationwide spoke about challenges they faced in exercising their right to organize including employer intimidation, immigrant worker exploitation, health and safety violations, wage theft and union suppression – while also highlighting the strategies that individual workers and unions have developed in the fight for worker solidarity and economic justice
These worker testimonies, policy solutions, and additional research were presented in APALA's groundbreaking report, Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence, which was published in 2010.
Over 200 people from across the country attended this historic hearing.
The hearing was co-convened by APALA and the AFL-CIO, in partnership with over 20 national and local organizations, to provide the first national platform for APA workers focused on the right to organize and the rights of immigrant workers.
Hearing panelists included:[1]
- Congresswoman Judy Chu
- AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler
- Special Assistant to the Secretary of Labor Mary Beth Maxwell
- APALA President John Delloro
- Jobs with Justice Executive Director Sarita Gupta
- UCLA Labor Center Director Kent Wong
- University of Maryland - Asian American Studies Department Director Larry Shinagawa
- United States Student Association President (at the time of the hearing) Gregory Cendana