Farmworker & Landscaper Advocacy Project (FLAP) - Proyecto de Ayuda para Trabajadores del Campo y Jardineros

FLAP is the only non-profit organization in Will county and the Midwest, and one of just a handful in the United States, that makes sure Latino low-income workers are treated with dignity, and guaranteed their legal rights. The Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project (FLAP) – Proyecto de Ayuda para Trabajadores del Campo y Jardineros – was incorporated in 1999 in response to a 1996 Congressional ruling that prohibited federally funded legal services programs from filing class actions for, and representing many of low-income workers. This prohibition includes H-2A agricultural workers, H-2B forestry workers, and victims of battery, extreme cruelty, sexual assault, or human trafficking. Justice and legal representation, that for decades inspired millions of oppressed people to come to America, were denied to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers, most of them Latinos. While FLAP serves all classifications of workers, it focuses on low-income laborers and their families.

The mission of the Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project (FLAP) -Proyecto de Ayuda para Trabajadores del Campo y Jardineros- in Will County is to improve working conditions for low-income landscapers, snow plowing workers, packinghouse workers, cannery workers, restaurant workers, farmworkers, nursery workers, greenhouse workers, meat and poultry workers and their households. In response to economic hardships brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, FLAP, with the support of different Emergency Funds, does community outreach and education and the distribution of COVID-19 information and resources available to the community by mail, social media, e-mail, phone, WhatsApp, text messages and media to reach out to Latino low-income population finding those in need, using FLAP’s 21 years data base, and facilitate the access to cash transfer from emergency funds to help supplement lost wages and answering questions directing the Latino low-income population to the appropriate service provider and different resources available in the community like: unemployment benefits, food pantries, safety at work, cash assistance, affordable health care and/or Shelters and legal assistance. FLAP carries out this mission through community outreach and education, litigation, community legal education, information and referrals and partnering with other organizations to fight human labor trafficking.