Portside

A growing group of laborers is trailing hurricanes and wildfires the way farmworkers follow crops, contracting for big disaster-recovery firms, and facing exploitation, injury, and death.

Through workers associations, work centers, and “alt-labor” groups, millions of workers — along with part-time workers, temporary workers, and those who work for employers that have no union — are using new tactics to fight against that inequality of bargaining power. The groups are not competing with traditional unions, but rather working alongside them and in tandem.