AFL-CIO Working to get rights for illegal immigrants
Union tries to get organized with day laborers


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Many rank-and-file members of the AFL-CIO question why their union is pushing for legalization for undocumented day laborers. But proponents say the move is a sign of things to come. Rachel Dornhelm reports.

Photo: Tim Boyle ? Getty Images

It may be very fortunate for me that where I am at the present time I can't listen to the above clip. I might hurt my hand on something. Here is the text,however and my comments if any will be in red bold text.

TEXT OF STORY

SCOTT JAGOW: I think maybe I take Labor Day too literally. I always end up working on Labor Day. But I hope you have the day off. This year won't be the cheeriest of holidays for the labor movement. Membership is down. The two biggest union federations can't agree on a vision. One of them, the AFL-CIO, hopes a new tactic might bridge that divide: Working with day laborers to get rights for illegal immigrants. Rachel Dornhelm reports.

Rights for illegal aliens, not immigrants, immigrants enter legally.
What rights do they want for illegal aliens? The right to break our Laws?

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RACHEL DORNHELM: At the crowded San Francisco Day Labor Center, Julio Reolla, who came from Peru four years ago, talks about his life working on jobs he picks up through the center or standing on the street.

JULIO REOLLA [interpreter]: We, along with other immigrant workers, men and women, tend to do the most dangerous, the dirtiest and exploitative jobs around.

He says he was very happy to learn that the AFL-CIO voted to partner with day labor centers like this to push for rights and legalization for unauthorized workers.(illegal aliens working illegally) He recognizes that there may be some tension with existing union members who see day laborers as a threat. But he shrugs it off.
One might expect the same shrug from a thief who was asked how he felt about the rights of his victims

REOLLA [interpreter]: I think it's natural. These organizations have different issues. Despite these differences, their goals sometimes coincide.

Greg Feere, head of the Contra Costa Building and Construction Trades Council, part of the AFL-CIO, says people are talking about the union federation's growing involvement with day laborers. But he hasn't gotten answers to his basic question:

GREG FEERE: So tell me how do we organize them and how do we put them to work? And so far at this point nobody's comin' up with any answers. you don't, you deport them. Maybe you want to know how to make a burgular's job easier too?

That may take time. One of the organizers of the San Francisco Day Labor Center, Renee Saucedo, says right now this is a political alliance.

RENEE SAUCEDO: The AFL-CIO will work on educating its members.how to bend over to make it easier for the Union Bosses to shaft us? We as day labor centers will work on educating our members. Because our members, sometimes because of negative experiences that people have had with unions in their home countries, don't trust unions in the U.S.

The AFL-CIO says the goal of their alliance is not to organize day laborers as dues-paying members, at least not now.no it's for politcal power later, screw the dues paying members Instead, it's to further national political goals, like removing the guestworker program from the immigration reform legislation.SEE? And to work on the local level, exposing unscrupulous non-union contractors and supporting one another's labor actions. Another goal, according to Ana Avendano, the director of the AFL-CIO's Immigrant Worker Program, is to bring workers in the U.S. back together.

ANA AVENDANO: One of the reasons that workers, in our experience, see other workers as threats is because both the immigration debate and the economic situation in this country has left people with a very unsettling feeling. And, unfortunately, both of those things have turned workers against workers.

UC Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken says this alliance shows how the labor movement has done an about-face in the past six to seven years in its attitudes towards immigration. He says there is likely lingering anti-immigrant bias among rank-and-file workers.I am NOT anti-immigrant I AM anti-ILLEGAL ALIENS

HARLEY SHAIKEN: But the potential gains far outweigh the tensions. If immigrant workers, particularly day laborers, are unorganized, they will of course drive wages and working conditions down. But if they are organized, they can work together with labor to improve conditions for everyone. particularly desirable for the coffers of Progressive Left collections

Shaiken says the rank-and-file should embrace newcomers to reverse the decline in union membership. Right now, he says, immigrants make up 15 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Yeah the Union Bosses figure small dues,due to small wages from a whole LOT of workers is even better than large dues from a smaller group of workers, more Political Power and screw the members

SHAIKEN: In the next 20 years or so immigrants will comprise 30 to 40 percent of all newcomers to the workforce. So for labor to be strong tomorrow requires organizing immigrants today.

There you go, fellow Union Members the AFL-CIO leadership figures we are expendable, and their future is with the Illegals
The new partnership will be on display this Labor Day at immigration policy marches around the country where the AFL-CIO will help bus day labor participants to the rallies.



In San Francisco, I'm Rachel Dornhelm for Marketplace.


**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.

Other Coallition Posts on this topic are.
Morning Coffee with Miller Beer sponsors Illegal Immigrant March and
The Uncooperative Blogger with immigrant rights march brought to you by Miller

Technorati Tags:Illegal Aliens***Undocumented Workers***AFL-CIO

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