Raise the Floor Alliance (RTF)

History

In 2005, the Just Pay for All Coalition, led by the Latino Union, joined employment attorneys at the Working Hands Legal Clinic (WHLC), which included three community organizing worker centers and provided legal and policy support to worker centers across Illinois.  ²  WHLC transitioned into the Raise the Floor Alliance with attorneys now under the Raise the Floor Legal Department helping low-wage and immigrant workers organize by providing free legal services, focusing heavily on temporary laborers across the state. ³

There is conflicting and inconsistent information about the exact formation date of RTF. A 2016 article from The Chicago Community Trust states that “until recently” Chicago worker centers were not cooperating, so eight of them joined together to form RTF. ⁴ A 2015 press release by Partners for Dignity and Rights states that RTF had launched that same year with eight founding members, including Arise Chicago, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights, the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative, the Latino Union, the Restaurant Opportunities Center Chicago, Warehouse Workers for Justice, and the Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. ⁵ However, according to ProPublica, the organization has been tax-exempt since January 2008, ⁶ and RTF’s own website says it was founded in 2007. ³

Activities

The Raise the Floor Alliance is among many organizations that participates in the national sanctuary city movement, arguing that the federal government cannot force jurisdictions to take part in immigration enforcement and promoting limiting or prohibiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies. ⁷

Along with other sanctuary city movement organizations, ⁸ including Communities Against Deportation, the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the groups filed a lawsuit in January 2025 against the Trump administration seeking to block immigration raids announced by the federal government in Chicago. ⁹ RTF’s executive director, Sophia Zaman, was quoted calling the planned operations retaliatory and unconstitutional because they aim to destroy Chicago’s sanctuary city movement. ¹⁰

RTF has partnered with Partners for Dignity and Rights, formerly the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, an activist organization that advocates for left-of-center policies regarding economics, social issues, health care, housing, education, and labor unionism. ⁵

Financials

According to The Chicago Community Trust, the Raise the Floor Alliance began with lead grants from The Chicago Community Trust and the Chicagoland Workforce Funder Alliance, stating that it was “the nation’s most ambitious worker center collaborative.” ⁴

In 2025, RTF received a grant of $80,000 from the Lawyers Trust of Illinois for its legal aid program. ¹¹ In 2024, RTF received $90,000, ¹² and in 2023, the organization received $75,000. ¹³

In December 2023, the Grand Victoria Foundation provided RTF with a $100,000 general operating support grant. ¹⁴

In 2020 to 2021, RTF received a $47,200 grant from Clean Slate for Worker Power, ¹⁵ a Harvard Law School initiative, to advance state-wide “just cause” and anti-retaliation legislation in Illinois. Partnering with the National Employment Law Project (NELP), RTF’s campaign seeks to replace at-will employment with just cause standards, giving workers stronger legal recourse against termination. ¹⁶

In 2017, the MacArthur Foundation, the 20th-largest foundation in the world as of 2024, ¹⁷ awarded RTF a $25,000 grant under their “Chicago Commitment” which allocates money to Chicago-based organizations to advance racial equity. This grant helped RTF create training materials and workshops to educate low-wage and immigrant workers on changes within federal immigration law and policy. ^{18  19}

Staff

Sophia Zaman is the executive director of RTF with over a decade of experience in community organizing and policy advocacy. ²⁰ In August 2025, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) announced that Zaman would continue to serve as a member of the Illinois Labor Advisory Board. This board advises the state Director of Labor regarding labor policy and the enforcement of laws, reviews statutes enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor, and provides recommendations on labor-related issues. ²¹