Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence documents findings from the first National Asian Pacific American Workers’ Rights Hearing, a historic gathering of over 200 Asian American and Pacific Islander trade unionists and community allies. The hearing was convened in the Samuel Gompers room of the AFL-CIO headquarters, Washington D.C., on Friday, November 13, 2009 . Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers from around the country 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.