Boxer & Gerson Joins Labor Rights Week Festivities At SF Mexican Consulate

Bilingual Workers’ Compensation Specialist Maria Sager had a busy week representing Boxer & Gerson, LLP during recent Labor Rights Week festivities sponsored by the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco.

The national observance, coordinated by the United States Department of Labor, included local events mixing education and celebration at the Mexican, Guatemalan and El Salvadoran consulates and other venues in San Francisco, San Jose and Napa.

Sager made six different presentations on workers’ compensation to Spanish-speaking audiences from August 27-30. She also staffed an informational phone bank sponsored by Spanish language television station Univision in San Jose, participated in a radio interview program promoting the week on San Francisco station KIQI, attended inaugural festivities at the Mexican Consulate, and participated in a planning meeting involving some 40 people in the weeks prior to the event.

It was the seventh consecutive year Sager had pitched in during Labor Rights Week to help inform Latin American immigrants of their workers’ compensation and other rights under established labor law. The theme of this year’s event was: “Know Your Rights at Work: The Well Informed Worker.” Those include the rights of workers to:

• A safe and healthy workplace free of obvious hazards
• Fair wages—including overtime pay and the federal minimum wage
• The right to speak to an employer about unsafe conditions or unfair wages
• The right to contact OSHA, the Wage and Hour Division, or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if their rights have been violated.

Sager makes similar presentations on workers’ compensation at the Mexican Consulate on a monthly basis throughout the year. Following up on the Labor Rights Week events, the Consulate invited her and her husband to a Mexican Independence Day fete on September 15, where some 300 guests celebrated the annual holiday, which is September 16. Known as “El Grito,” the holiday notes the 1810 revolt and subsequent independence of Mexico from Spain.