CENTRAL FALLS — In the brand new offices of Fuerza Laboral-Power of Workers in Central Falls there is a pair of hair dryers each with an eyeball painted on.

When workers from the laborers’ organization go to a company to protest injustices, such as not getting paid for the work they did, they tote the eyeballs and hold them high like posters. It’s a way of letting employers know that they are being watched, that workers know their rights, says Gregory Pehrson, the director of Fuerza, the newly established organization.

One of Fuerza’s missions is to teach workers their rights and how to defend them. The organization will also concentrate on bringing change to the workplace and building new community leaders.

Fuerza was born out of what used to be the United Workers Committee, which worked out of Progreso Latino, the state’s largest Latino social agency, on Broad Street in Central Falls. The committee, which came to be respected for its work on behalf of immigrant laborers, went out of existence in February after Progreso laid off Pehrson and five other employees because of budgetary constraints.

Since February, Pehrson and other committee members reorganized and got $34,000 in grant money to start a new organization. Pehrson works full time and Heiny Maldonado is a part-time worker. The organization will be run by workers and has membership dues.

Tomorrow, Fuerza will open its offices at 398 Dexter St. at 1 p.m. to the public to celebrate its inauguration and bring in new members.

The organization does not provide social services as it did when it was with Progreso. “We do organizing. We are training people so that they defend themselves and train others,” says Pehrson. He and former United Workers Committee organizer Amarilis Rodriguez said Fuerza is also eyeing a way to organize and empower young people. They expect many workplace complaints to come from temporary and contract workers.

Rodriguez said the most common complaints among laborers are that of nonpayment from their employers, sexual harassment and being labeled as subcontractors to absolve themselves from responsibilities such as workers’ compensation.

The organization is part of a national network called the National Training and Information Center in Chicago. The organization provided the former United Workers Committee with the training that Pehrson says helped lead them to a victory with the state Department of Labor and Training. Two years ago the committee and some 100 workers met with Adelita Orefice, director of the labor department, and told her that her staff had a practice of collecting Social Security numbers in wage claims and the claim was rejected if the numbers were not valid or if an employee did not have a number. Orefice got rid of that practice and agreed to hire some Spanish-speaking investigators.

Through more work with the Chicago-based organization, Pehrson said he was made aware that the organization will work better if a network of people run it rather than just him. He uses the illustration of a 16-year-old undocumented boy who was sent to the organization by a school counselor because he was so angry over the death of his father, who was electrocuted while working at a factory. The committee encouraged the boy to tell his story before senators in Washington. “I couldn’t have gotten the message across. He can because he is living it,” Pehrson said.

The organization rents a space at 388 Dexter St. from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, which takes care of its utilities. The office will be open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fuerza’s number is (401) 725-2700.