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Local Hero: Victor Narro, Uniting Car Wash Workers Across L.A.

A man with curly salt-and-pepper hair and a white beard speaks into a megaphone he holds in his right hand as he gestures with his left hand. Protesters with hand-written signs in Spanish are visible behind him.
Victor Narro is a founder and the president of the advisory board of directors at the Clean Car Wash Worker Center, the country’s first center advocating for workers in one of Los Angeles’ most exploitative industries. He is a nominee for Local Heroes 2023.
By PBS SoCal Staff
November 15, 2023
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Nominee Name: Victor Narro
Title: Founder and president of advisory board of directors
Organization/Business: Clean Car Wash Worker Center 
Location: Los Angeles
Website

About Victor Narro

Victor Narro is a founder and the president of the advisory board of directors at the Clean Car Wash Worker Center, the country’s first center advocating for workers in one of Los Angeles’ most exploitative industries.

In L.A County, an estimated 10,000 workers are employed at car washes where basic labor, health and safety laws are not followed. Long hours in the heat, abrasive and toxic chemicals and no drinking water or refusal of rest breaks are commonplace in car wash businesses, where employees are rarely paid the minimum wage. Clean Car Wash Worker Center recently launched CleanWash Mobile, LLC, a worker cooperative.

A nationally known expert on immigrant rights and low-wage workers, Narro has been involved with immigrant rights and labor issues for almost 40 years. He is currently a Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center and Core Faculty for the UCLA Department of Labor Studies, where he teaches classes that focus on immigrant rights, low-wage workers and the labor movement. Narro is also Core Faculty for the Public Interest Law Program at UCLA School for Law.

Narro 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). Before his tenure at CHIRLA, Victor worked in the Los Angeles Regional Office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).

Narro 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 co-editor of "Working for Justice: The L.A. Model of Organizing and Advocacy" (Cornell University Press, 2010) and "No One Size Fits All: Worker Organization, Policy, and Movement in a New Economic Age" (Cornell University Press, 2018).

Narro has published a children’s book about labor solidarity, "Jimmy’s Carwash Adventure" (Hard Ball Press 2016). His latest book publication is "The Activist Spirit – Toward a Radical Solidarity" (Hard Ball Press 2022).

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