Los Angeles is a city of immigrants. It is also a city of trade unions. And in California, those two constituencies are essentially merged into one.
It should therefore not be a surprise that federal immigration -raids in workplaces around Los Angeles County this week are the biggest protests so far against the occurrence of the immigration of President Trump.
On the first day of the protests, David HuertaThe President of the California Chapter of the Employees International Union service and the grandson of Mexican farm workers, was arrested and admitted to the hospital for a head injury after he was pushed by a federal agent. Officials said that he blocked the law enforcement with an immigration trip and his detention touched a series of national mobilizations.
In a hasty rally For the Ministry of Justice in Washington on Monday, some of the best copper of the workers’ movement passed on a microphone to decry immigration enforcement operations and demand its release.
“Our country suffers when these military raids are apart,” said Liz Shuler, the president of the AFT CIO, who reads in a cluster of signs, “Free David.” “One thing that the administration needs to know about this community is that we do not leave anyone behind!” Mr. Huerta was released on bail later in the day and is still confronted with charges.
It was not always the case in American trade unions. Historically, they often viewed immigrants with suspicion, probably undermine wages and are not willing to stand up against employers. Although those attitudes still exist, trade union leadership has tailored to the rights of immigrants – and has placed himself square in contrast to the agenda of the Trump government of mass deportation.
Immigrants are now so heavily represented in many trade unions that even when almost all have a legal work status, deportations are felt sharply because many employees have family members without papers.
That is why, said Arnulfo de la Cruz, the president of a Seiu-Local who represents about half a million long-term employees in California, the response to immigration enforcement in Los Angeles has been so strong.
“The moment you perform actions that would separate families, that is the worst result in the world,” said Mr. de la Cruz. “It is life -changing. It throws your family finances, your loved ones in chaos.”
Many trade union contracts now protect immigrants without papers. For example, some prescribe a process that prevents management from terminating employees immediately when the federal government marks a mismatch between immigration verification paper and official social security registers. Others prevent employers from resounding immigration status after a trade union member has been hired.
Trade unions also enforce legal assistance funds to help their members with immigration problems and to inform both employees and employers about what they should do if immigration enforcement visits their workplaces.
Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Union, said that some of her members had no papers, just like many of their students. This week she felt the fear of the eighth grade diploma ceremony of her own son.
“I let parents come to me and said,” Hello, you don’t know me. I am a teacher, but what should I do when ice comes to our community? “Said Mrs. MyArt-Cruz, with the help of the acronym for immigration and customs enforcement. “That makes it our business.”
The road to merging the interests of the Union and the immigrants in Los Angeles started in the nineties, because waves of immigrants from Latin America and Asia came to dominate the low-paid industries such as hospitality, clothing production, storage, storage and construction.
The Congress adopted an Immigration Act in 1986 that granted amnesty to three million immigrants, while it became illegal to hire people without the correct documentation. That gave rise to the shadow work force that many companies are going to depend.
“Labor has embraced more open immigrant workers because they are a larger proportion of the workforce,” said Victor Sanchez, the executive director of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a group of interests founded by a coalition of work and immigrant organizers. “More often they are in low wages of the economy. The intersection of that fact and the immigration status is very clear.”
New leaders originated from those communities to lead labor organizations. Miguel Contreras, who trained with the United Farm Workers and then moved to the hotel organization, made the political strategy of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor around immigrants again. He channeled activism against Stelling 187A 1994 voice initiative that denied public services to immigrants without papers and was ruled unconstitutionless in 1998.
Maria Elena Durazo, the wife of Mr Contreras and colleague hotel organizer, took over the federation after his death in 2005 and is now senator of the state. At that time, what a conservative city had began to take a more progressive shade under the leadership of the business elite. Politicians supported by the Labor Federation have campaigned against police enforcement of immigration laws and for increasing the minimum wage.
In recent years, trade unions and their allies have worked to extend to other places where many immigrants work when they first arrive in the country – as day workers or in fast food restaurants. Although those efforts are in general not become in legally recognized trade unionsThey have delivered employee centers that try to protect the rights of employees at work. In recent years, organizing has been helped by a BIDEN administration policy Those immigrants protected against deportation while working together in the investigation of abuse by their employers.
Victor Nerro, a project director at the University of California, Los Angeles, Labor Center, led one Campaign to organize Carwash employees In Los Angeles, which then spread to Chicago and New York City. This week, Mr. Nerro spent helping help for the families of people without papers being held by federal officials, as well as the training of those who are still working on their rights.
“We feel the fear, but we also feel a deep resilience, because we are part of networks,” said Mr. Narro. “That solidarity becomes real, it’s a force.”
Trade unions in other parts of the country have also insisted on immigrant rights. In New York, for example, trade unions have supported one Bill that would prevent state officials from asking about immigration status.
However, this tight coordination between immigrants and trade unions does not extend throughout the country. Many trade unions have not adopted immigrant rights as their own struggle. And in the south, where most states have so-called right to work laws that make organizing more difficult, both work and immigrant lawyers miss the political influence to protect immigrants without papers.
Take Florida, where Gov. Ron Desantis has mobilized state enforcement officials to help enforce immigration and where the legislative power has determined A series of laws that increase criminal penalties for immigrants without papers in the state. The Florida trade unions resist those efforts without results.
Rich Templin, the political director of the AFT CIO capble of the state, said that his members had not completely embraced immigrants, but that they came around. He calls it an evolution.
“” I wouldn’t say we’re still there, “said Mr. Templin.” But it is absolutely of a space of them as ‘the other’.
Madeline Janis, who was co-founder of the Los Angeles Alliance for a new economy with Mrs. Durazo, helped to drive the metamorphosis of the city in a municipality-driven municipality driven by immigrant-oriented trade unions. She is now co-director of Jobs to Move America, a non-profit organization that works to increase labor standards based on publicly supported projects.
She also works in southern states, such as Alabama, where there is much less support for immigrants and trade unions. With organizing the patient, she suggests, attitudes can change.
“When I am in Alabama, I am reminded a lot of the la where I grew up, who had a Republican mayor, where massive segregation and mistreatment of immigrants,” said Mrs. Janis. “That of course remains to this day. But the difference between then and now is very important.”
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