Workplace

Our team zealously advocates in the courts and administrative tribunals to seek redress for wage, contract, and other legal violations on behalf of workers.  Our successes range from sizable settlements in federal court multi-plaintiff actions to state court judgments in individual actions.  We have put money in the pockets of forestry workers, tomato pickers, restaurant staff, construction laborers, and others whose rights were violated by law-evading employers.

From the Eastern Shore to Southwest Virginia, the Northern Neck, and the Shenandoah Valley, our organizers and community lawyers spent tireless hours listening to deeply felt worker concerns—and then problem-solving alongside the workers and community coalitions to strive for positive change. From direct action to the provision of community resources and policy advocacy work, worker empowerment is growing throughout the Commonwealth in some of its furthest flung regions, with workers and community members as the lead.

We are fighting to remove long-standing legal exemptions rooted in Jim Crow that prevent migrant and farmworkers from being afforded the same protections as other workers throughout the Commonwealth.  To that end, we have led coalitions to strip the state minimum wage and overtime exemptions for farmworkers and visa workers over the last several years.  

Migrant workers are increasingly coming to the Commonwealth on H-2A and H-2B work visas, which operate under a complicated and flawed set of laws that adversely affect workers. To that end, our team works alongside national and state advocates to push legislators for better legal protections, call attention to poor enforcement by federal and state labor agencies, and advocate for more protective regulations.

Our team is on the forefront of combatting labor trafficking in the Commonwealth and has a strong national reputation for blending law and organizing to address forced labor concerns. We do so by building trust with workers, cooperating with federal and state officials, and maintaining a strong team of litigators with trafficking law backgrounds. This approach has led to not just promising labor trafficking investigations, but also attaining one of the largest settlements in the country’s history in a labor trafficking case in federal court on behalf of H-2B migrant workers.

Federal and state health and safety laws are severely lacking for workers around the country and in the Commonwealth. Our team, however, is making tremendous strides in addressing these concerns. Most namely, we led a campaign that resulted in the nation’s first COVID-19 enforceable workplace standards—which were then modeled by other states across the country. We also have campaigns that involve addressing other deeply felt safety needs around the state, including but not limited to substandard housing, pesticides, water testing, and dangerous workplace conditions.