Socialist Action /July 2000
LABOR BRIEFING
by CHARLES WALKER
20,000 in L.A. rally for immigrant workers
At long last, the AFL-CIO has done an about-face
concerning immigrants' rights. At its February executive meeting it adopted
a resolution supporting amnesty for undocumented workers. It now says that
it opposes sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers, and
it's calling for new laws to provide on-the-job protections for immigrant
workers.
Previously, the AFL-CIO was a major backer of 1986
legislation that bans firms from hiring undocumented workers. But after
a while, the union complained that the bosses weren't obeying the law, and
undocumented workers were getting jobs.
If that wasn't bad enough for the union tops, when
they tried to organize undocumented workers, bosses often would call on
the immigration authorities to deport the workers. Obviously, the AFL-CIO
had to choose between a kind of "domestic protectionism" and smaller
unions; or win the fight to organize immigrants.
Seeing that as many as 5 million to 6 million immigrant
workers are estimated to be in the United States, it's no wonder that some
observers liken the AFL-CIO's choices to the choices unions faced in the
1930s: Organize workers into craft unions, a proven failure during the Depression,
or into industrial unions and really grow.
Recently, the AFL-CIO convened regional hearings
that heard testimony from immigrant workers detailing their hardships. The
hearings established beyond all doubt that the 1986 law imperils the job
security of any undocumented worker who dares to complain about abuse, job
hazards, and sweat-shop wages.
The Los Angeles hearing attracted by far the largest
turnout, where an estimated 20,000 attendees packed a sports arena, and
filled the surrounding sidewalks. Reportedly, "Immigrants from Peru,
Mexico, Thailand, Korea and numerous other countries filled the arena, waving
their home country flags and American flags. Many said they were illegal
immigrants" (Associated Press, June 10).
AFL-CIO Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson told
the crowd, "Time after time we see employers try to divide us from
our sisters and brothers. They try to pit immigrants against nonimmigrants,
documented against undocumented, and try to drive down the wages and working
conditions of all."
The AFL-CIO's new stance on immigrants' rights
deserves all workers' support. But at the same time, workers need to organize
to push the top labor officials to stop viewing workers outside the U.S.
borders as competitors, rather than allies. For as the Associated Press
reports, "The AFL-CIO still objects to increasing the number of immigrants
allowed to work in the country legally."
Of course, it's too much to expect the labor tops
to really embrace radical labor's war-cry, "Workers of the World Unite!"
Still, with the increasing proportion of immigrants in the work force, it
might be less difficult now than in the past to push and shove the labor
officialdom in that direction.
For starters, workers could add their voices to
the voice of an immigrant at the Los Angeles rally who said that she wants
still more from the labor leaders: "We shouldn't have to have papers.
People are coming in every day, and dying trying to. Shouldn't they be included
in the amnesty?" (The Militant, June 26).
She's not exaggerating. "Along the 2000-mile
U.S.-Mexico border, 356 Mexicans lost their lives last year attempting to
cross, according to figures compiled by the Mexican Consulate" (Immigration
News Briefs, April 2000). And the Clinton/Gore administration's Operation
Gatekeeper "is driving border crossers away from the San Diego area
into the more remote and dangerous mountain and desert areas to the east."
Amnesty International has declared that Operation
Gatekeeper is "a human rights abuse," saying it "maximizes
the physical risks, thereby ensuring that hundreds of migrants would die"
(San Diego Union Tribune, April 18).
Operation Gatekeeper is used by racist vigilantes
as a cover to wage a paramilitary battle against undocumented workers fleeing
maquiladora wages and working conditions, or worse. A Tucson union and immigrant
rights activist, George Shriver, has written that "a group of Cochise
County [Arizona] ranchers ... have waged a vigilante crusade against unarmed,
undocumented workers crossing the border....
The official position [of local county sheriffs
and some county officials, as well as the former head of the Tucson-area
Border Patrol] is sympathy for the vigilante ranchers. These vigilantes
therefore have received implicit permission to carry out their violent armed
arrests, shooting, terrorizing, and using hate language. These are home-grown,
"good-ole'-boy" paramilitaries who provoke conflict, hate, and
terror."
Certainly, the day that the AFL-CIO convenes mass
hearings to end the official and unofficial war against immigrants fleeing
poverty can't come soon enough.
Socialist Action /July 2000 |