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CSULB student advocates for workers’ rights

Cal State Long Beach student Alicia Morales revealed one of her longest kept secrets during a Long Beach community forum on May 10.

“I’ve worked as a janitor for about five years,” Morales, a senior history major, said in front of 150 people as she sat among a panel of civic leaders. “I worked graveyard shifts — mopping, cleaning bathrooms [and] toilets.”

Morales said she hopes that voicing her story will help The Coalition to End Wage Theft in Long Beach — a newly formed alliance comprised of various community groups  — further its ongoing grassroots campaign against wage theft.

According to the Filipino Migrant Center, one of the community groups spearheading the campaign, wage theft is “stealing workers’ wages” by failing to comply with legal working terms and conditions that include basic rights to minimum wage, overtime pay, meal and rest breaks and the right to receive full and on-time payment.

“Back in 2007, when the Undocumented and Unafraid movement was coming, it was really easy for me to come out and say, ‘I’m undocumented and unafraid,’ but I would not talk about the worker part,” Morales said. “I would never mention I worked as a janitor.”

Morales, who emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. in the early ‘90s, said being an undocumented student left her with very few work opportunities that will pay for college tuition. Upon graduating high school, Morales said she resorted to working for her father’s janitorial service company where she learned the hardships endured by low-wage workers.

Morales said as she became more involved with civic and political engagement while at CSULB, the easier it became to tell others about her experiences.

“As young people, we don’t like to think of ourselves as victims but it’s important,” said Morales, who now works as a community organizer for the Long Beach Immigration Rights Coalition (LBIRC).

She said that when young adults find that there aren’t enough jobs in the market, “[they] sometimes have to succumb to these other forms of employment.”

One of the biggest problems that affect low-wage workers is being treated as independent contractors instead of employees, Morales said. Many corporations wait an entire month before paying for janitorial services, causing janitors’ incomes to fluctuate drastically.

She said her father’s company would have up to seven contracts in one month and as low as three on the next month.

“This [affected] paying our bills, food for our family, for families of those who worked with us,” she said. “Such state of despair, stress and economic insecurity really takes a toll on someone’s emotional, physical and mental capacity.”

Morales said she recalls coming home from a 2 to 6 a.m. graveyard shift, having to take her younger sister to school and then going to class herself.

“That morning, I remember sitting down just to rest for half an hour, and I could not get up from fatigue,” she said. “I realized I was pushing my body too much, but I wanted to go to college and had to work to afford it. That was a really powerful moment for me as a worker.”

Senior sociology major Theresa Ibarra, who attended the event, said hearing Morales’s testimony made her value her education more.

“Many times, we fail to recognize where people come from and how much people have fought to get the education that comes a little bit easier for most of us,” Ibarra said. “I was actually touched because I have family who come from that.”

Sonia Espitia, senior sociology major, said she was also moved by Morales’s message.

“I didn’t realize that Long Beach was very active in fighting for workers’ rights,” Espitia said. “Alicia’s story was very poignant. I feel that we are all entitled to an education, and the more programs to help others like her, the better.”

Morales, who lives in Los Angeles, said she became involved with LBIRC while attending CSULB. She said she eventaully quit her job as a janitor when she became a community organizer, and attributes finishing her college education to the unwavering support from people in the community.

Morales will graduate from CSULB this spring, but the Los Angeles resident said her activism in Long Beach will continue. She said she plans to remain involved in the community and to one day combine her degree and experiences to become an educator.

“I want to accomplish two things:one is for workers and people to be aware that everything they do should be valued; two is to get people civically and politically engaged,” Morales said.

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