> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi
>The question is how we uncouple union organizing from
> anti-immigrant sentiments. ..Unions can't organize them while
> calling La Migra on them at the same time, no? Max and higher-level union
> officials probably think that the U.S.government can, should, and will
apply judicious immigration control and
> fair-trade economic sanctions (including import bans) to benefit American
> workers permanently. Steelworkers and other mass production workers were
once predominantly new
> immigrants, no? (In fact, the ratio of the foreign-born to the
native-born
> workers was much higher in the early decades of this century than now.)
> But the unions organized them anyway. That's the spirit we need.
Unions went through a phase of immigrant-bashing and in the 1980s even supported employer sanctions against undocumented workers. But that attitude has done a major turnaround as unions have begune organizing massive numbers of immigrants. It is a fair guess that of the 500,000 workers organized this year by the AFL-CIO, a good third or more are probably immigrants. The largest gain of the year - the 90,000 home health care workers organized in Los Angeles - are an overwhelmingly immigrant group. And along with mobilizing against Prop 187 in California, unions officially have repudiated employer sanctions against immigrants.
And to give some idea of the AFL-CIO's official pronouncements on immigration, here are some from the aflcio.org site:
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Unions Reach Out to Immigrant Workers
Chawee Sukajatanee, an immigrant from Thailand, sought a voice at work with the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees, because her bosses at Jetway Express and Host Marriott at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) treated her “like a slave,” she says.
“They treated me bad,” Sukajatanee says. After a supervisor began harassing her for wearing the wrong uniform to work one day, “They cut my hours to one day a week, when I used to get four or five. I knew I needed a union.”
But immigrant workers across the country “are often unaware of what rights they have in this country and are easy targets for exploitation by employers willing to take advantage of them,” said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson at an Oct. 9 convention press conference announcing the federation’s new initiative to bring respect and dignity to immigrant workers.
A series of four Community Forums on Issues Facing Immigrant Workers begins next month. The forums—to be held in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta—will allow immigrant workers to tell about the challenges and hurdles they face on the job and in the community.
Chavez-Thompson noted that one in 10 workers in this country was born outside of the United States, and when they face exploitation by employers, many are turning to unions.
Yet, as immigrants seek a voice at work, “employers humiliate, degrade and threaten them because of their immigrant status,” she said.
“Immigrant workers are a significant and defining element in the labor movement in this country,” said Clayola Brown, UNITE vice president and chair of the AFL-CIO Executive Council Subcommittee on Immigration. “Nearly every industrial union in the AFL-CIO can thank immigrants for helping form and shape their organizations. The issues of immigrant workers have been in the past, and must be in the future, the issues of the American union movement.”
She said a white paper on the issues facing immigrant workers, “with facts, conclusions and recommendations,” would come out of the forums and be presented to the full AFL-CIO Executive Council. =====
Resolution: Immigration
The ancestry of most American workers lies not in the United States, but in every country in the world. From the beginnings of our nation, men and women arrived in the United States and set out to make it their own, joining with other immigrants and the native-born to form one people. Throughout our history, immigrants have played an important role in building the nation and its democratic ideals. New arrivals from every continent have contributed their energy and vitality to making the United States richer and stronger. Their achievements are remarkable, given that they arrived in a nation that at times failed to welcome them as fellow Americans, and often discriminated against them, whether they were African slaves, Irish farmers, Chinese railroad laborers or Mexican agricultural workers. Without their sacrifices, Americans would not have the freedom and prosperity they enjoy today. Immigrants continue to follow this proud legacy into the next century.
The union movement in particular has been enriched by the contributions of immigrant workers. Their courage has played a fundamental role in building our movement, and newly arriving workers continue to make indispensable contributions to the strength and growth of our unions. In workplaces all across the country, immigrants are joining unions, fighting for decent contracts and becoming leaders in our unions. America's unions are reaching out to unorganized immigrant workers with the realization that providing all workers with the most effective representation is key to increasing the bargaining strength of every worker.
Because the union movement has a rich immigrant history, because hundreds of thousands of immigrants are an integral part of American unions and because immigrants contribute enormously to our society, the union movement recognizes its obligation to defend our system of legal immigration and immigrant rights at a time when some facets of society continue to scapegoat immigrants. Contrary to unfounded beliefs that some of our newest immigrants contribute to the stratification of our country, more than 7 million immigrants have become U.S. citizens since 1973, the most in any 25-year period in American history.
The union movement also recognizes the important role the United States plays in accepting refugees and asylum seekers. The United States should continue its tradition of providing a safe harbor for the persecuted.
To achieve these goals of fairness for immigrants, the AFL-CIO reiterates its long-standing commitment to immigration policies and laws that provide fair opportunities for legal immigration. In particular, the AFL-CIO supports immigration policies that promote family reunification and calls upon the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to process applications for naturalization, permanent residence and work authorization in an efficient and timely manner and to address the backlogs that frustrate many legal immigrants.
The AFL-CIO strongly opposes temporary "guest worker" programs that create groups of easily exploited workers at the expense of U.S. workers. Last year, Congress approved an increase in the number of H-1B (specialty) temporary worker visas that will result in the presence of up to 700,000 H-1B workers in the United States, while failing to provide most U.S. workers with protection against displacement and a fair opportunity to be hired for a job. The annual H-1B cap is reached not because of an urgent need for foreign workers, but by the exploitation of the vague definitions of a specialty worker, cursory labor certification by the Department of Labor, inconsistent and incomplete screening of the credentials of H-1B visa applicants by Department of State consulate offices and a failure to report even the most basic information regarding H-1B workers, their employers and their occupations by the INS. The AFL-CIO calls upon Congress to return the cap on H-1B visas to 65,000 and reform the H-1B program after thorough analysis of the effect of H-1B workers on the U.S. labor market, an examination of fraud and abuse in the H-1B program and the implementation of accurate and timely reporting of H-1B statistics by the INS.
Far too many employers have sought to exploit the H-2B (other skilled worker) and H-2A (agricultural guest worker) programs in order to depress the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers. Although both programs require certification by the Department of Labor that qualified U.S. workers are not available, U.S. workers are discouraged from even applying for jobs because they are advertised with below-market-rate wages and benefits, creating the appearance of a worker shortage that is exploited by employers seeking a steady supply of cheap, docile labor. Despite complaints from agribusiness that the labor certification process is complicated and time-consuming, the U.S. Department of Labor in 1998 approved more than 99 percent of all agricultural guest worker applications—even though many rural areas suffer from double-digit unemployment. The dreadful bracero program should not be resurrected under the guise of the H-2A and H-2B temporary foreign worker programs.
Immigrants contribute much to the American economy, pay taxes and deserve the benefits of social services. The AFL-CIO supports the provision of safety net benefits for immigrants and looks forward to the restoration of benefits that have been stripped from immigrants by recent legislation.
The AFL-CIO continues to support legal and civil rights for immigrants and opposes federal agency programs that penalize or threaten immigrant workers, documented or undocumented, who have attempted or are attempting to assert their rights under our nation's collective bargaining, health and safety, minimum wage or other laws. The union movement particularly is alarmed by INS raids at workplaces where organizing campaigns are in progress. The INS must fully recognize and respect the federally protected rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively and act in concert. The AFL-CIO is further concerned that the INS has chosen to conduct its worksite enforcement with the cooperation of the very employers that often are responsible for the importation and hiring of undocumented workers in the first place. We call upon all federal agencies to recognize and respect the federally protected rights of unions to represent their members and to organize workers. The AFL-CIO opposes immigration enforcement programs that undermine unionized workforces and target minority workers through racial and ethnic profiling and immigration enforcement programs utilizing seriously flawed databases.
The AFL-CIO calls on the nation's political, civil and religious leadership to refute and speak out against those who seek to blame immigrants for the country's economic and social problems. We urge our national leaders to be at the forefront of the effort to reaffirm our national heritage as a land of freedom and equality for those who choose to make the United States their home.
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No. 34 Defending the Right of Immigrant Workers and the Right to Organize
Submitted by the California Labor Federation.
WHEREAS, our country and its labor movement were built in large part by immigrants that include those Africans who were kidnapped and forced into slavery. Our laws have historically reflected public attitudes about race, with bans and discriminatory limits on legal immigration from Asia, Africa and Latin America, which have only recently been rectified. People have come here seeking economic survival, often driven from their countries of origin by hunger, political repression and the lack of economic opportunity; and
WHEREAS, there are over 100 million people in the world today who have left their countries of origin. Only social and economic justice on a global scale will create a world where immigration is not a means of survival for the world's poor; and
WHEREAS, thousands of immigrants, working both with and without documents, have mounted large and effective campaigns to organize unions in California in the last decade. These efforts have created new unions and strengthened and revived many others, benefiting all labor immigrants and native-born alike; and
WHEREAS, the ability of workers to organize has been increasingly threatened by current immigration law and its enforcement, which has been used to retaliate against workers who organize and protest against sweatshop conditions; and
WHEREAS, the California Labor Federation resolved in 1994 that employer sanctions should be repealed and we have passed the same resolution in each convention since then. Sanctions cause discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds foreign, because they provide a weapon employers have used repeatedly to fire and threaten immigrant workers who organize unions, and because they make immigrant workers vulnerable and cheapen their labor, violating their rights as workers and human beings; and
WHEREAS, the California Labor Federation seeks labor stands for the equality of all workers and opposes immigration legislation and its enforcement, which divides workers and undermines that strength. All workers, regardless of immigration status, have the right to form unions; file complaints against illegal and unfair treatment without fear of reprisal; receive unemployment insurance, disability insurance, workers' compensation benefits; and enjoy the same remedies under labor law as all other workers;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Labor Federation supports the calls made by many affiliated unions for the repeal of employer sanctions; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Labor Federation opposes all cooperation between the Immigration and Naturalization Service and other government and public institutions in which information provided by immigrants is misused for immigration enforcement purposes. The institutions include but are not limited to SSA, the Department of Labor, unemployment and welfare offices and motor vehicle departments, among others; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Labor Federation calls for a new amnesty program, allowing undocumented immigrants to regularize their status, and an inexpensive and expedited citizenship process to allow immigrants to become citizens as quickly as possible; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Labor Federation proposes that the budget for immigration enforcement be cut drastically, and the money used instead to increase enforcement of workers' rights and fair labor standards; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, the California Labor Federation submits this resolution to the national convention of the AFL-CIO for adoption, and requests the AFL-CIO to forward its position to the national convention for adoption as well.
Referred to the Public Policy Committee.