History
CSWA was originally founded in 1979 in NYC’s Chinatown by a group of Chinese restaurant workers, who felt they needed an organization that would go beyond the limitations of traditional union organizing. Initially established as a voluntary membership group with mostly male, restaurant workers, CSWA today has grown into a direct membership organization of over 2,000 members working in diverse trades, documented and undocumented, and from all backgrounds and ages. Our leadership is composed primarily of women. We have two centers, one in Manhattan's Chinatown the other in Brooklyn's Sunset Park Chinatown. CSWA is the first workers' center in the country, bringing together workers across all trades to fight for our basic legal and human rights in the workplace as well as in the community-at-large.
A few of our many accomplishments in the past 30 years include:
- Assisting workers to recover over $50 million in awarded backwages
- Establishing the first independent restaurant union in Chinatown
- Preserving the environment and cultural integrity of the community by winning a landmark legal victory that stopped luxury development and displacement in Chinatown and reframed people as part of environmental rights struggles
- Securing the first wage increase in ten years for New York State’s tipped employees; and more recently, winning a precedent-setting legal decision prohibiting employers from stealing tips
- Being the first to successfully hold a garment manufacturer accountable for sweatshop conditions and brought nationwide attention to sweatshops, receiving recognition at the 1997 Philadelphia Presidential Volunteer Summit for our work in promoting a teaching example for fighting against sweatshops
- Being one of the first organizations to raise awareness, document and advocate for the needs of low–income workers affected by the disaster and directly assisted over 2,000 families North of Canal in accessing more than $2 million in relief assistance
- Wing Lam, Executive Director, on behalf of CSWA, being among the first group in 2001 to be recognized by the Ford Foundation’s program, Leadership for a Changing World, for developing a new model of organizing
- Partners with Bellevue Hospital in our 9/11 health network to establish the only treatment and screening program for residents and workers affected by the 9/11 toxic air and leveraged critical
- United documented and undocumented workers to organize together, particularly in the Chinatown restaurant industry where conditions have improved dramatically and many restaurants now have a 40-hour workweek.