Hoping to replicate the success of their brothers and sisters in Los Angeles, carwash workers in New York City are launching a unionization drive in a bid to clean up labor practices in their troubled industry. Kirk Semple reports for the New York Times:

At a carwash in an industrial patch of Astoria, Queens, Adan Nicolas, a Mexican immigrant, is preparing to open the newest front in New York City’s labor battles.

His bosses have often paid him and the other carwash workers less than minimum wage and have cheated them on overtime pay, Mr. Nicolas said. The workers, he said, are not provided with protective gear but are forced to use caustic cleaners that burn their eyes and noses.

Community organizers say these kinds of violations are rampant among local carwashes.

So for the past several weeks, under the tutelage of immigrants’ advocates, Mr. Nicolas, 31, has been briefing his colleagues in rudimentary labor law and the language of organizing. Out of the sight of bosses, similar conversations have been unfolding at other carwashes around New York City.

“We’re all ready to fight for our rights and have a dignified place to work, and not to be abused like we are today,” Mr. Nicolas said.

On Tuesday, a coalition of community and labor organizations plans to introduce a citywide campaign to reform the carwash industry. The union advocates, in turn, hope to use the campaign to unionize carwash workers across the city, most of whom are immigrants.

Similar campaigns in Los Angeles have so far yielded collective bargaining agreements at three car washes.

[Photo credit: Nyer82, Creative Commons.]