The union representing RAICES workers held rallies in San Antonio and Dallas Saturday to denounce planned layoffs.
RAICES, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, is the largest immigration non-profit in the state.
Marco Galaviz Luna, the group's social media manager and a union member, said nine workers were laid off, including him.
"These positions are vital. My position as social media manager is to engage with the community, to share what RAICES is up to, to educate, and a big part of this role was to use social media to get people out of detention centers,” he said. “And so, it's a little baffling that they would announce these changes without talking to us — the workers."
RAICES CEO Dolores Schroeder said the decision to lay off the employees had not yet been made. She said leadership brought the restructuring proposal to the union.
“Due to changed circumstances and not the fault of employees, those positions are not as effective as serving immigrants and refugees as they once were,” she said in a statement to TPR.
Tensions have grown between management and the union since Schroeder was hired by the RAICES board to be the CEO last spring.
The workers said management had promised a national search, and they have been critical of the board's decision to select their own chair for the role.
The RAICES workers unionized in 2021 with the goal of giving workers a seat at the table when it comes to salary negotiations, benefits and workplace policies.
"Advocating for immigrants is incredibly demanding work. And on the legal side, it's incredibly complex,” said Kate Richardson, a RAICES staff attorney and union negotiator. “RAICES workers are highly skilled professionals who give a lot of themselves to the job. We aren't machines. We aren't interns using this job as a steppingstone to the corporate world. We are people with families, with pets, and with vacation plans. Asylum cases aren’t won — we win them.”
The union has met twice with management at the bargaining table so far this year, and a third meeting is scheduled for July.
“RAICES has also made its position clear that it has been, and will continue to, hire people into positions that more directly serve clients, including over 40 direct legal and social services positions posted for hire in the last several weeks,” Schroeder said. “These issues are presently being bargained with the Union and it is premature to predict the outcome of that process.”
