IF employers are allowed to discriminate and exploit immigrants, all workers will suffer

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/01/13/%e2%80%98-immigration-is-about-all-workers%e2%80%99/

‘Immigration Is About All Workers’

by James Parks, Jan 13, 2007

Just as Martin Luther King took on tough issues of social justice, union members attending the AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Day celebration Friday afternoon in Houston took on the controversial question of immigration and its impact on unions and minority workers.

Despite claims by some groups that immigrant workers take jobs from minorities, the fact is that if employers are allowed to discriminate and exploit immigrants, all workers will suffer, said James Andrews, president of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO:

Being African American, having been born and raised in the South, I witnessed the civil rights movement where blacks and browns and whites all came together to help those with the least. Now we need to come together to help this newest group of those in need. We have to educate our members that immigration is not just about immigrant workers; it’s about all workers. When employers deliberately exploit and discriminate against immigrant workers, they pull down all workers.

Andrews was a member of a special panel that addressed the issue of “Unions and Immigrant Workers” during the annual celebration.

The King Day celebration continues today as the more than 500 participants fan out through Houston to work on projects in poor communities such as fixing up homes and buildings in disrepair and supplying paper and food products for soup kitchens.


Thousands of immigrant workers gathered during 2003 in San Francisco in preparation for the three-week Immigration Workers Freedom Ride that culminated in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Sunday, the group will join worshippers at the Fifth Ward Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, where civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton will speak. Sunday evening, several Houston activists will receive awards for their dedication to protecting workers’ rights. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) will speak. The celebration culminates in a rally and march Monday.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson set the tone for the discussion on immigration when she said:

We need real immigration reform that offers a fair, clear path to citizenship for all those undocumented workers and their families who have been working hard for years, paying their taxes, and contributing to their communities. It shouldn’t prevent good, decent immigrants from entering our country. Instead, it should offer them entry as permanent residents with the ability to become citizens. Just as important, it should guarantee that all working people will have equal rights on the job…rights like the minimum wage, freedom from sexual harassment, a safe workplace, regardless of whether they’re born here or elsewhere, undocumented or documented.

FULL story at link.

[hansberrym]

1. By all means, stop the exploitation. Corporations, businesses, and

Individuals who hire illegals ought to face severe penalties. And those who go further and exploit illegals ought to face criminal charges. But the rest of the non-sense from the link is just that.

AFL-CIO link list 3 points, each of which is crapola:

The current system of immigration enforcement is broken and needs to be reformed to allow undocumented workers to gain citizenship.

How can a problem be "fixed" by simply ignoring the problem by giving citizenship to persons who have curcumvented the system and broken the law. The problem can only be truly fixed by enforcing the law.


Employer sanctions should be replaced with a system that targets and criminalizes employers who recruit undocumented workers from abroad for economic gain.

"from abroad" - how clever, under such a plan employers would not be held accountable for hiring illegals here. Thus the enforcement mechanism, rather than being utilized to fix the problem, would be removed completely.



Immigrant workers should have full workplace freedoms, including the freedom to choose a union.

Of course they should, and they do now! But the clever ambiguity bullshit is getting old.
If there is no difference between a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant, then we are a nation without borders -meaning we are no longer a nation at all.

[conscious evolution]

2. One of my agiprop themes

It's not the Mexicans
Its the Criminals who hire them.



I am a construction worker in Atlanta.One of the things I do on jobsites is plastering portajons and unfinished walls and other sutable spots with anti bush,anti corporate,anti war,etc etc with my trusty sharpy.
You would be surprised at the responces it gets.Mostly positive.The few negative replies usually get flamed big time.