THERE ARE other members of Rhode Island's burgeoning Hispanic community with more juice, but Mario Bueno is indisputably one of the most important. As an advocate for the Rhode Islanders most susceptible to exploitation -- immigrant workers -- his fight for social justice continues by one small detail at a time. Bueno, a 31-year-old Providence native, works from a third-floor desk at Progreso Latino, the Central Falls-based advocacy agency. And while Bueno is polite and personable, the papers piled on his desk suggest the ceaseless demands of his work.

Phoenix: How did you get involved in advocating for immigrant workers?
A: I guess I got involved through influential people in the community that were close to me, that served as mentors, people within my local parish in Providence, who had an activist background working in different issues. I think just most of the people working in our community, blue-collar background, working in manufacturing -- which is a dying industry -- and the issues of barriers that our community face -- all those. I was usually the kid that was taken around from household to household to translate, so it was just something, part of my experience growing up. It's pretty much following that experience.

Q: How is the general outlook now for immigrant workers and other workers subject to exploitation?
A: I don't think there's too much of a change. Things look pretty bleak because of the budget crisis. We were hoping that the economy would have continued, you know, relatively strong. We were advocating or fighting for increased enforcement by the [state] Department of Labor, and that doesn't look too good for us right now. It looks even worse than before. So we kind of had hopes because of the economic climate. We had hopes for industry to step up and jump back, and that's not happening right now. So there's a lot of people on the unemployment rolls, folks who don't qualify for unemployment who are jobless right now.

Q: Has the growing profile of the Latino community helped to make immigrant workers less susceptible to exploitation?
A: It may help, but we haven't seen the effects yet. There's still a long way to go. Right now, in comparison to the number of elected officials and people in power, we're minute, relatively speaking in terms of the population. The effects will hopefully be coming in the future, but it's going to take a while.

Q: What are you focusing on these days?
A: Regardless of the circumstances, we continue to fight for increased enforcement of labor laws. We're trying to talk with employers and encouraging employers to respect the legal rights of workers, but also we're trying to create a bridge between the jobless and folks who are looking for better work, and the employers. So we're having conversations with employers and hoping that people who are out of work can get a job, which is the bottom line right now.

Q: How would you rate the job done by the state Department of Labor in terms of enforcing labor laws? And if there are problems, what are the obstacles in getting the department to do a better job?
A: The obstacle has always been that there's a hiring freeze. The governor never lifted that hiring freeze. Therefore, we don't have folks going to companies. You know, when you have a bad elevator, you have someone to go out and check it out. Well, we only have, I think, two or three state inspectors, folks who check on non-payment of wages claims, et cetera. We don't have any people who are bilingual working in that capacity, so we have a lot of people who, because of the language barrier, can't get across what issues they're confronting.

Besides that, there's also a lot of work that needs to be done legislatively, too, in order to address employment issues that weren't that prevalent before in the past. Issues arising from changes of work structure and systems. Now, you know, you have more of a temporary work force, which was not the case years before, so there's a commission right now in place -- it's called the Temporary Employment Commission -- and they're looking at those issues.

Those are some of the obstacles that we see. In terms of the workforce gaining skills and moving up, we have a real big deficit in terms of the number of classrooms for adults who need literacy skills, English skills, et cetera, and workforce training skills. So there's also a deficit in those programs. There's not enough programs for adults and the budget keeps getting smaller and smaller for that. So those are things that we need to build -- relationships, both with employers, government, and the education sector, and the community colleges.

Q: How responsive are political officials in the state to the kind of concerns that you work on?
A: I think most officials are interested or concerned about the issues, but yet there comes a point with some officials where they just close a door, because they know it's not a quick and short answer. It's a long process and it takes a lot of work. It's a difficult process and a lot of officials don't understand the influence or contributions that immigrants have here in the state and across the country.

I just came from a session at the Department of Labor and Training on labor market information, and we had someone from Northeastern University in Boston talking to us about the numbers. As you know in Providence and in Rhode Island, the population has maintained at level because of the immigration flow, and 49 percent, according to him, of the new entries to the workforce nationwide were immigrants. So immigrants are really meeting a need within the country, in terms of providing labor force. With that, obviously come costs and investments that have to be made, and that's something that a lot of politicians don't care for. So that's something that we have to continue working.

Q: What have been some of your most satisfying successes in terms of your work?
A: I think one of them is that we have the United Workers Committee, a group of workers [that review cases of alleged exploitation], that I'm pretty satisfied about, that I don't credit myself for. That has evolved due to the time and investment that we have given to the project. Basically, this group has been around since '94, and it's made of just regular blue-collar workers that work in different industries, some people who aren't working, who are injured workers, other retired folks who are concerned about workplace issues.

What I think is the most valuable thing that has come out of working with the community is the leaders that have evolved, the pieces of work with other organizations. Some are working, for example, with the daycare co-op on daycare issues, others are working with local parishes and local communities, working on housing. So that's the most fulfilling -- having folks participate that might have never participated if they wouldn't have been involved.

Issue Date: October 25 - 31, 2002