Rebecca Smith

Meeting of November 13, 2013 - National Origin Discrimination in Today's Workplace

Rebecca Smith graduated in 1982 from the University of Washington School of Law and has worked, since that time, representing low-wage and immigrant workers on employment issues. She is the Deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP). She has extensive litigation experience on issues related to immigrant workers' employment rights and wage and hour law. She has worked with allies to develop local, state and federal policies to protect and expand low-wage workers' rights.

Ms. Smith was the principal author of an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in NLRB v. Hoffman Plastic Compounds, 122 S.Ct. 1275 (2001). She also wrote and co-wrote amicus briefs in several post-Hoffman cases, including Rivera v. Nibco, Inc., 364 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir. 2004) and the request of the Government of Mexico for an Advisory Opinion in the International Court of Human Rights on a member state's limitation of remedies for undocumented workers who suffer violations of their labor rights.

Selected publications:

Immigrant Workers and Worker's Compensation: The Need for Reform, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE 55:537-544 (2012)

"Human Rights at Home: Human Rights as an Organizing and Legal Tool in Low Wage Worker Communities," Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (2007)

"Solutions, Not Scapegoats: Abating Sweatshop Conditions for All Low-Wage Workers as a Centerpiece of Immigration Reform," New York University Journal of Legislation & Public Policy (2007)

"Low Pay, High Risk: State Models for Advancing Immigrant Workers' Rights," New York University Review of Law & Social Change (2004)

"Interamerican Court of Human Rights Amicus Curiae Brief: The United States Violates International Law When Labor Law Remedies are Restricted Based on Workers' Migrant Status," Seattle Journal for Social Justice (Spring/Summer 2003)