Sugar Law Center: Projects

Sugar Law uses litigation and public policy advocacy to protect workers in plant closings and mass layoffs.

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to give their workers 60 days notice before a plant closing or mass layoff. Its purpose is to provide workers with time to seek alternative employment or retraining.

Direct representation of dislocated workers around the country by Sugar Law has led to the payment of millions of dollars to those whose employers attempted to avoid complying with the law.

Work with

the Sugar Law Center

Sugar Law is always seeking allies among progressive lawyers, activists, students and citizens.

We refer cases to private attorneys, provide education and opportunities for students, and share our resources as broadly as possible with all those seeking to make change for a more equitable society.

Contact us for details on how you can get involved.

Environmental Justice

Our Environmental Justice Project has litigated on behalf of communities affected by environmental racism.

We provide public education as well as technical assistance to community organizations and legislators.

And just as in our other projects, we connect the practice of environmental to civil rights law.

Worker's Rights as Human Rights

In partnership with American Rights at Work and a range of other allies, Sugar Law has embarked on a strategic effort to expand American workers’ rights by connecting them to

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those defined around the globe as fundamental human rights and protected by international institutions.

The US is covered by many international treaties, conventions and other legal instruments—sometimes by having formally signed on and in other cases through the force of international norms. Yet domestic legal and public discourses use the terms and concepts of human rights rarely and with very little effect.

Through Workers’ Rights as Human Rights, Sugar Law is working to provide tools for lawyers, union organizers and other activists to use international instruments in the domestic struggle for workers’ rights. Our goal is to support a broad movement in developing compelling arguments in the courts and in the media, so that judges, the public and ultimately legislators recognize and enforce fundamental human rights in the workplace.

We seek to address the vulnerability of US workers to abusive, illegal working conditions. While Wal-Mart’s practices have been most highly publicized, the business and legal environment that favors its model has led to similar practices at many other employers.

Sugar Law works with the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) to assist working people who seek enforcement of employment laws. We review inquiries the UFCW receives from workers as a result of its Wake Up Wal-Mart campaign.

The Center also supports the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)in assisting the employees of Wackenhut, an international security services company.The Law Center assesses workers’ experiences for potentially actionable claims arising from violation of employment rights by Wal-Mart, Wackenhut, and other employers. Project objectives include

a) providing direct legal representation where possible,

b) establishing mechanisms to connect employees with other attorneys as needed, and

c) disseminating information on the rights and abuses of retail workers to the workers

themselves as well as the broader public and policymakers.

Center for Community-Based Enterprise

An exciting example is Sugar Law’s role as one of the founding organizational members of the Center for Community-Based Enterprise (C2BE). Created by a network of labor, business, and community activists, C2BE is a new nonprofit whose mission is to grow “community-based enterprises”—sustainable, locally rooted businesses paying living wages. C2BE will serve as a catalyst and resource center for businesses that are a) committed to increasing income and assets for workers, and b) permanently rooted in their home communities by binding legal and financial mechanisms.

Making this model work in the U.S. legal environment is worthwhile, but not simple. As part of C2BE’s leadership, Sugar Law is involved in setting up legal structures for community-based enterprises and for the Center itself; identifying and enlisting key stakeholders to make community-based enterprise an effective tool; and developing education campaigns to broaden public understanding of this valuable approach.

Participative ownership and management systems have helped communities across the world build strong, stable economies.

The Basque region of Spain, for example, is home to the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation. This highly successful network of companies began with a handful of unskilled youth in a depressed area; today 80,000 worker-owners conduct over 20 billion euros of business each year.

Sugar Law serves on ROC-Michigan’s Advisory Board, and our staff and interns have assisted in outreach with local restaurant workers.

ROC-Michigan Coordinator Minsu Longiaru said “Sugar Law is an indispensable ally...The depth of their experience and relationships to labor, community, and advocacy organizations makes them an invaluable support for workplace justice efforts.”

Sugar Law is the recognized national expert on WARN Act prosecution, training, and education. In this capacity, we have testified before Congress in hearings to amend the WARN Act, brought lawsuits on behalf of several thousand workers and unions, obtained favorable rulings interpreting the law, written important amicus curiae briefs to federal courts and the United States Supreme Court, and received wide press coverage.

We also provide technical assistance to lawyers, publish information for attorneys litigating WARN Act cases, and maintain a WARN pleading bank to assist in these efforts.

In its first major project, C2BE is working with the United Food and Commercial Workers to develop a financially feasible grocery store project in Detroit, with fresh food and fair work conditions. Departure of national chains has left the city a “food desert.”

Other incipient C2BE projects include advanced manufacturing using licensed proprietary technology. As varied as the ventures will be, all will benefit from Sugar Law’s help in introducing to American business new ways of building fair, sustainable wealth for families and communities.

Restaurant Opportunities Centers United

Sugar Law is proud to support the Michigan operations of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United), a national workers’ organization that helps restaurant workers organize for better working conditions.

Initially founded in New York to support World Trade Center restaurant workers displaced by the 9/11 tragedy, ROC has provided workers with job training and placement; opened a cooperative restaurant; and conducted research and policy advocacy for workplace justice.

As it expands around the country, ROC will replicate its New York successes by

1) conducting research and policy work to lift industry standards;

2) promoting “high-road” restaurants that pay and treat workers well; and

3) organizing workers to win workplace improvements in “low-road”

restaurants, supported by litigation, clergy, and consumer boycotts.

ROC-Michigan will also provide free training and placement programs to help workers get high-end restaurant jobs.