Steve
Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
On Mon, 20 Dec 1999, Tom Lehman wrote:
> Yoshie, WWI effectively cut off immigration to the USA. Then after WWI a very
> strong quota based immigration bill was made law. So, there were almost 20 years
> between the effective end of immigration and the rise of the modern industrial
> unions in the mid-1930's. During this period of 20 years the unions as they
> existed attempted to educate about the benefits of union membership and help the
> millions of new Americans who had flooded in prior to WWI.
>
> The UMWA was probably the most immigrant friendly of all the big American unions
> during this time. As you may or may not know the USWA was created by UMWA money
> and organization. The UMWA was also the force behind the organization of the CIO.
>
> My Dad and my Grandad could make themselves understood in any number of Eastern and
> Southern European dialects and languages. I always got a big kick out of this when
> I was a young kid. This I guess you would call a cultural heritage?:o)
>
> We may need to put the brakes on immigration today?
>
> Nathan, posted some AFL-CIO boilerplate on H-1B; it's worth taking a look at.
>
> Tom
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> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > Tom:
> > >Yoshie, be a little careful on this one. One thing that I'm reading about and
> > >hearing about is the use of these H-1B visa's to break union organizing
> > >campaigns in the so-called high tech computer industries. A scab's a scab no
> > >matter how you cut it.
> > >
> > >Our own Senator Mike Dewine and Senator John "Conflicted" McCain, two of my
> > >favorite Republicans have been pushing to get more of this type of visa
> > >issued!
> > >The H-1B besides being used to bust union organizing drives and is also a
> > >racket
> > >for high tech coyotes.
> >
> > No doubt such instances exist, but as you say, a scab is a scab with _or
> > without_ an H-1B visa, whether s/he is a citizen, "guest worker," or
> > illegal alien. The question is how we uncouple union organizing from
> > anti-immigrant sentiments. In some workplaces, the majority of workers
> > must be immigrants (close to our home, many factory farms in Ohio, for
> > instance), many of whom are illegals. Unions can't organize them while
> > calling La Migra on them at the same time, no? Besides, hi-tech computer
> > industries, to take your example, can relocate wholesale, right? In fact,
> > that's even cheaper than importing workers, given differences in living
> > standards between the USA and India, China, Poland, etc (whether you are
> > talking about the production of hardware or software). "Why bring them
> > here and pay them American wages? Pay them Polish wages," or so would the
> > ruling class think, eventually.
> >
> > 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. I'm saying the U.S. government won't. And it can't
> > -- I think that under capitalism we at the capitalist core will either get
> > a high-unemployment, high-wage, expensive-welfare economy (W. Europe) or a
> > low-unemployment, low-wage, cheap-welfare economy (USA), with or without
> > immigrants, however you control them. And the former is in the process of
> > transforming itself into the latter, and in fact, the U.K. has already done
> > so, to a large degree. (Japan will probably have to do so to get out of
> > deflation and stagnation; it hasn't yet -- hence the immense fiscal stimuli
> > and low interest rates producing little signs of robust recovery.) In any
> > case, both are dead ends for workers.
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Yoshie
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