I am working on a book manuscript on the prescriptive norms, legitimating values, and enforcement institutions, i.e., "moral economy," being built by worker centers, which are part of “alt labor” in the United States. The book is based on an ethnography that I did in a Chicago-based worker center. In addition to defining the moral economy of alt labor and worker centers, the book explains how worker centers, which have little money, small memberships, and thin staffs, are expanding workers’ rights. The answer to the question lies in the way worker centers take advantage of their social and symbolic capital. I show that “struggle” builds social capital that can later be harvested for legislative wins, and that low-wage workers can posses “symbolic capital” even though they are generally considered low-status individuals.