>From today's NYT, a really progressive approach to undocumented workers,
actually putting protections in the union contract.
March 9, 2000 I.N.S. Looks the Other Way on Illegal Immigrant Labor NY TIMES
The commercial laundry industry in Chicago, where Mr. Silva works, clearly benefits from the Immigration Service's live-and-let-work approach. Thirty companies wash and iron the city's hospital and restaurant linens, hotel sheets and towels, and factory uniforms. Half of their 2,800 employees are illegal immigrants, mainly Hispanics, according to Unite, the union that has organized most of them in recent months.
Last fall, Unite negotiated contracts that recognized the illegal status of some workers, and shielded them. One clause requires an employer to bar an I.N.S. raid unless the agents have a search warrant. And a company must notify the union if it gets wind of a coming raid.
"Sometimes I did not want to go to work," Mr. Silva said. "I saw reports on TV of immigration raids and people being led away and I worried that would happen to me. Now the union contract is reassuring, and I no longer see raids on television."
A third clause states that when former employees are rehired with new papers -- even new names -- after their original documents are found to be false, they retain their seniority and resume their old pay level.
Union scale goes as high as $8.75 an hour.