Credit: Nick Romanenko

Richard Cunningham, left, director of New Labor, a New Brunswick center that serves immigrant workers, talks with client Enrique Hernandez. Cunningham, a Rutgers alumnus and an adjunct instructor in the School of Labor and Management Relations, said the center has signed up 300 card holders and processes five to 10 more registrations per day - "all through word-of-mouth."

Demonstrating that the ivory tower can come down to earth, a Rutgers professor’s research project has led to a product that is improving the daily lives of struggling immigrant workers and their families.

Janice Fine, assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations, has developed a program that issues stored value cards to workers who may have shunned bank accounts in the past. Called “SiGo” cards (joining the Spanish word for “yes” and the English word “go”), they are similar to debit cards but don’t require their holders to open a checking account through a bank. The card was rolled out at eight pilot sites nationwide last year, starting in September with New Labor, a New Brunswick center that serves immigrant workers. The pilot project has proved so successful that Fine and her backers are now expanding it to centers on Long Island and in Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.

Fine’s three-year research project on immigrant worker centers resulted in a book, Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream (Cornell University Press, 2006). Her work with immigrants also raised this question, she said: “Is there a way we can save workers money on financial transactions and give them a way to store money so they are not placing themselves and their loved ones at risk?”

Many immigrants can’t open checking accounts or don’t trust commercial banks, and so must rely on expensive check-cashing outlets to cash paychecks or send money to their home countries. But SiGo users can have employers deposit their paychecks directly to the card account or load them with cash deposits at New Labor or designated businesses. The cards can then be used like a debit card anywhere MasterCard is accepted. Card holders can also send a second card to family members in their home countries, saving on the fees – $10 and up – charged by Western Union to send money abroad.

“The cards are really taking off,” said Richard Cunningham, a Rutgers alumnus who is New Labor’s executive director and an adjunct instructor in the School of Management and Labor Relations. Because New Labor has only a staff of five, “We started slowly,” he said, with no formal marketing effort – only word of mouth. New Labor has signed up 300 card holders and processes five to 10 more registrations per day.

Similar stored-value cards have been offered by businesses and banks, but haven’t made significant inroads with immigrant workers. Fine’s research convinced her that immigrants were more likely to trust community institutions like worker centers, which help low-wage workers with advocacy, education and organizing services such as English classes, job safety training, and help in recovering back wages.

“So far, we have all the indications that this is a project that will work,” Fine said. Fine also sees the cards as a way to create a steady income stream for struggling organizations like New Labor. The New Brunswick center charges $4.95 to open a card account and splits the monthly $2.95 fee with IDT Corp., which markets SiGo. New Labor also makes money on each transaction and gains an efficient way for its members to pay dues.

Fine developed the project when she was based at the Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C., which administers it with Community Financial Resources, a Berkeley, Calif., nonprofit organization headed by Lauren Leimbach, a former banker. It is supported by ShoreBank of Chicago and the Ford and Annie E. Casey foundations.

Fine’s interest in unions and low-wage workers stems from personal experience.  She was a full-time organizer – for student, community, campaign. or labor organizations –starting at age 19 until she became a professor at Rutgers in 2005. Fine first joined a union as a teenager, working as a supermarket checkout girl to help out her family when a health crisis threatened their finances.

“From early on, I really appreciated the importance of unions,” she said. “So for me, working with unions and worker centers and thinking about asset building strategies for low-wage workers is in my bones.”

David Finegold, dean of the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said he’s very excited about Fine’s research and work with financial services for immigrants. “I see her as one of the rising stars for Rutgers.  She is doing just the kind of work we want, that’s having an impact in both academia and the real world,” he said. “She’s doing things that are benefiting everybody.”