Damayan Migrant Workers Association empowers low-wage workers to fight for their labor, health, gender, and immigrant rights. Our purpose is to build leadership at the grassroots level to eliminate labor trafficking, fight labor fraud and wage theft, and to demand fair labor standards to achieve economic and social justice.

In 2002, Damayan was founded by five Filipina domestic workers. One of the co-founders, Linda Oalican, is a seasoned organizer from the Philippines who had critical knowledge about grassroots organizing and building worker power – in theory and through lived-experience. She knew that real change could happen if people are organized and it begins by empowering the most abused workers, the undocumented Filipino migrant workers.

Damayan clearly rooted forced migration and the consequent exploitation and labor trafficking of Filipino migrant workers, particularly women domestic workers, to the chronic poverty and lack of sufficient livelihood opportunities in the Philippines. In its early years, Damayan also engaged more in organizing for Philippine and anti-war issues. Damayan organizers and members joined anti-war rallies against US wars of aggression in Iraq, the Philippines, Afghanistan, Palestine, and everywhere.

Today, Damayan continues to build worker power through providing critical services and doing base building, leadership development, political education, campaigns, advocacy, and alliance work. It serves as a sanctuary for Filipino migrant workers fighting and winning wage theft, labor trafficking, and modern day slavery.