MFY battles wage theft, discrimination and other problems confronting the city’s low-wage and immigrant workers.

Through public education, litigation and policy advocacy, MFY’s Workplace Justice Project provides legal services for hundreds of low-wage workers who would be unable to access justice without our help. In collaboration with workers’ centers and community-based organizations citywide, the Project trains workers and advocates on workers’ rights, focusing especially on the problems faced by immigrant workers, contingent workers, older workers, and former prisoners re-entering the labor market.

The Workplace Justice Project provides advice, counsel and direct representation to hundreds of workers each year facing unpaid wage claims, employment discrimination, health and safety violations, denial of Unemployment Insurance, and minimum wage and overtime violations. The Project works closely with workers’ organizations and has pursued many successful wage claim cases on behalf of women employed as nannies, maids, and home health aides.

Workers contact us through our weekly helpline or are referred by a workers’ center. MFY holds an Employment Law Clinic twice a month, where workers speak directly with an MFY attorney, paralegal, or pro bono attorney to get advice and counsel on an employment problem.

MFY’s  Re-entry Project helps people with past criminal records who are attempting to re-enter the workforce handle problems with securing licenses, documenting rehabilitation and correcting errors on rap sheets.  MFY’s assistance has enabled scores of workers to move off public assistance and secure living-wage jobs.

MFY advocates for policies and practices that promote workers’ rights and has advocated for changes in small claims court and improvements in wage and hour enforcement, and trains advocates on protecting workers’ right to be paid.

MFY’s Workplace Justice Project receives generous support from the Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation and the New York City Council.