Victor H. Narro - Commissioner

Victor H. Narro was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and approved by the Los Angeles City Council on January 28, 2011. Currently Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center, Victor has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for many years. At the UCLA Downtown Labor Center, Victor Narro’s focus is to provide leadership programs for Los Angeles’ immigrant workers and internship opportunities for UCLA students.Victor is a faculty member of the UCLA Department of Labor and Workplace Studies. Victor is also a lecturer for the Chicano/a Studies Department, where he teaches classes that focuses on immigrant workers and the labor movement.

Victor was formerly the Co-Executive Director of Sweatshop Watch. Prior to that, he was the Workers’ Rights Project Director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) where he was involved with organizing day laborers, domestic workers, garment workers, and gardeners. His work in multi-ethnic organizing led to the creation of the Multi-ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network (MIWON) in collaboration with KIWA, Garment Worker Center and Pilipino Worker Center.

Through Victor’s leadership, the day laborer project was able to grow into the National Day Laborer Organizing Network that today includes 40 community based worker centers from around the country. Over the past few years, Victor has worked with the Los Angeles Labor Movement on major immigrant worker organizing campaigns with janitors, hotel workers, laundry workers, sanitation workers, port truckers, and more recently, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign. Before his tenure at CHIRLA, Victor worked in the Los Angeles Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). From 2005-2010, Victor was appointed by L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa to the Police Permit Review Panel of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

Victor is a nationally known expert on the workplace rights of immigrant workers. He is the author of many law review and journal articles. He is co-author of Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities (2008), and Wage Theft and Workplace Violations in Los Angeles (2010). He is also co-editor of a recent book, Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy (Cornell University Press, 2010).