Carwash workers and their community supporters celebrated passage of A.B. 236, a bill to renew the state’s Carwash Worker Law on Friday. Carwash workers, legal services, community organizations and unions announced the launch of an outreach campaign to raise awareness about the law to the roughly 10,000 workers in the Los Angeles-area carwash industry.

The Carwash Worker Law was one of only a handful of labor bills signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this legislative session. Manuel Zuniga, who worked at Florence Carwash in Los Angeles for more than three years, told the crowd:

Carwash workers helped pass this law, and now we want all workers in this industry to know it exists. We have found our voice and we are saying, “Ya basta” (”We’ve had enough”) to exploitation!

Community members and union supporters held banners proclaiming, “Wash Away Injustice,” and workers stood behind a large display of fliers describing the Carwash Worker Law they later distributed to carwash workers across the city.

The law provides workers with a means to collect unpaid wages by creating a fund for carwash workers and requiring all carwashes to purchase a surety bond as insurance for unpaid wages. The law also requires carwashes to register with the state of California, enabling officials to prevent employers who have violated labor laws in the past from continuing to do so.
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