UNITE Negotiates Seniority for Illegals (even after deportation)

Tom Lehman uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu
Thu Mar 9 04:48:18 PST 2000


I came across an interesting little factoid. The population of El Salvador, during the Marxist insurrection of the 1980's in El Salvador, doubled. The population doubled!

Sounds like they are having a fuckin' good time down there in Latino America.
:o)

Maybe Brad should re-vise his stats.

Tom Lehman

Nathan Newman wrote:


> >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.



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