Cristina Tzintzún, executive director of the 12-year-old Workers Defense Project (WDP), is making progress in her uphill battle to improve working conditions and pay for very low-income workers in Texas, most of them involved in construction and many of them undocumented immigrants.

"I think we fill a gap," Tzintzún says of the WDP, explaining that the workers the Austin-based organization fights for typically have no other advocate and, often, nowhere else to turn.