Immigrant workers lead labor's upsurge
Organizing victories from Los Angeles to New York
By John
Catalinotto
Immigrant workers are emerging as the heart of a dynamic
upsurge in the U.S. labor movement. New victories have
brought into the front lines the fastest growing section of
the workforce.
In a recent report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
estimated that the number of immigrant workers has climbed by
over 2.2 million over the past three years to 15.7
million.
This makes immigrant workers 12 percent of the U.S.
workforce, the greatest level it has been in seven
decades.
Couple this news with stories of immigrant labor
organizing victories from home-care workers in Los Angeles to
green-grocery workers in New York, and the impact on the
fight for workers' rights in general is clear.
Immigrants are an especially large proportion of the
workforce in the hardest and lowest-paying jobs. These
include fruit and vegetable pickers, meatpackers, poultry
plant workers, gardeners, hotel housekeepers, restaurant
workers, janitorial service and building demolition
workers.
This large influx of immigrant workers is already having a
tremendous impact on the class struggle. The bosses who hire
them are trying to keep their wages low. They also try to
keep these workers in an insecure legal state, so that they
can use the threat of deportation against the estimated 6
million that are undocumented.
But these workers are capable of the greatest worker
militancy and solidarity. This development offers a
tremendous opportunity for labor to organize large numbers of
new members, strengthening the entire working class.
Last Feb. 16, in a landmark policy change hailed in
immigrant communities from coast to coast, the AFL-CIO
Executive Council unanimously called for amnesty for the 6
million undocumented workers and their families in the United
States. The AFL-CIO called on Congress to repeal a 1986 law
that has victimized these immigrants.
The resolution commits the federation to push for new
immigration laws that would protect undocumented workers from
firing or deportation if they try to unionize or complain to
the government about violations of labor laws, including
minimum wage and safety requirements.
This policy of solidarity with immigrant rights, if fought
for consistently, would help organized labor win millions of
new adherents. A victory here would weaken the bosses'
ability to intimidate immigrant workers. This could breathe
new life into the workers' side of the struggle for better
wages, benefits, working conditions and jobs.
This came to life on Feb. 25, 1999, when in a stunning and
historic victory for organized labor, the Service Employees
union brought over 74,000 Los Angeles home-care workers into
its ranks. It was the biggest union organizing victory since
1937, when the Auto Workers won its battle to represent
workers at General Motors.
These workers, who care for elderly and disabled people in
their homes, are overwhelmingly immigrants, women, African
Americans, Latinos, Asians and people of other oppressed
nationalities.
Victory in greengrocer struggle
A substantial number of undocumented immigrants live in
the New York metropolitan area. Organizing among Latino/a
greengrocer workers, African delivery workers, and garment
workers from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean takes
place under the constant threat of INS raids and
deportations.
But it does happen. Indeed, the latest organizing
victories are taking place among greengrocer workers in
downtown Manhattan. Some 14,000 Mexican workers are employed
by the produce industry in New York. Most work 14-hour days,
seven days a week, preparing fruits, vegetables and flowers
in sweatshop conditions. Most make less than the minimum wage
and receive no benefits.
Last winter, after months of strike and boycott activity
involving immigrant-rights and community groups, Local 169 of
the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees
signed union contracts with two greengrocer owners on the
Lower East Side. The contracts provide workers for the first
time with at least minimum wage, overtime pay, health
insurance, paid sick days and one week of vacation per
year.
The struggle continues at other stores. Charles Twist, a
union organizer and regular participant in the picket lines
on the Lower East Side and Fifth Avenue, told Workers World
that UNITE announced a legal victory at a news conference at
the end of August.
"New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer was
finally forced to recognize and act on the fact that there
are such horrible sweatshop conditions existing in the
greengrocers and delicatessens in New York City," said
Twist.
One worker, Silverio Otero of Mexico, will receive $7,000
in back wages through a settlement Spitzer arranged. Otero
was required to work 72 hours a week for $240, which amounts
to $3.33 per hour, far below the already low $5.15 minimum
wage.
Twist said, "Two stores on the Lower East Side were fined
a total of $100,000 for 10 workers who had been working for
around $3 per hour for the last few years."
Twist pointed out that "there has been strong support from
the community--people silently throw up fists of support as
they walk by, others are outraged when they learn that people
are being paid so little. And many people have refused to
shop. Business is down from 60-70 percent at most stores
being boycotted."
East Natural and Abigail's on Fifth Ave. and Olympic on
the Lower East Side have been picketed for the last few
months. "Valentino's on Fifth Ave. settled quickly," said
Twist, "and workers can look forward to support from
progressive students at nearby New York University and the
New School as the fall term opens."
The Mexican American Workers Association began the drive
for unionization. UNITE and the Lower East Side Community
Labor Coalition joined together to organize effective support
for the strikers. They joined forces to build community
outreach, a boycott of the stores and student activity in
solidarity with the workers.
Statue of Liberty's motto
It is an example of what can be done to strengthen
workers' rights in the U.S. But it must be combined with a
fight for immigrants' rights in general.
In an Aug. 30 New York Times story on documented
immigrants facing deportation for minor crimes, one
imprisoned immigrant, Alejandro Bontia, said, "The motto of
the Statue of Liberty in today's America is: give me your
poor, your tired and your hungry, because we still have empty
jail cells."
Progressive unionists will make sure that what new
immigrant workers face is not sub-minimum wages and a jail
cell but union wages and the solidarity of the organized
labor movement.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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