Unions Split Over Immigration Bill

[High Plains]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Unions split over immigration bill

Some welcome immigrants as new union members, and others see only unwelcome job competition. The split could doom the bill and have a broad political impact.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Times Staff Writer
June 1, 2007

WASHINGTON — Competing demands by two factions of organized labor could sink the latest immigration legislation, dividing congressional Democrats who rely on union support.

The labor divide reflects a deeper rift within the party, which includes a growing constituency of immigrants as well as middle-class workers afraid of layoffs as U.S. jobs move overseas.

On one side of the debate are the AFL-CIO and other large industrial unions whose members have historically seen illegal immigrants as unwanted competitors.

The other side includes the Service Employees International Union, whose members have healthcare, property management and public service jobs, and Unite Here, which represents garment, hotel and restaurant workers. These unions have embraced immigrants, even those here illegally

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-immig1jun01,1,1251277.story?track=crosspromo&coll=la-news-politics-national&ctrack=3&cset=true

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Didn't the CIO originally come about because the "labor aristocracy" of the AFL showed no interest in organizing immigrant workers a century ago? I guess some things never change.

[High Plains]

1. I'm with SEIU and Unite on this issue.

We need to regularize these workers and integrate them into a revived labor movement, as SEIU and Unite are already doing.

[High Plains]

2. Ho hum, why would DU care what labor thinks about immigration?

[Joanne98]

3. I care and I'm with the AFL-CIO !

[High Plains]

6. Why?

[Zodiak]

4. I tend to fall on the AFL-CIO side, as well.

12 million people who were not invited is a lot of competition. Especially when one considers that 40 million Americans are impoverished and 45 million have no access to health care.

I also think that 6 million peope who hate the way it is in Mexico (about 50% of the illegal aliens) enough to come here illegally could really have helped Obrador in the last election.

Don't get me started about illegal aliens already having union jobs right under our noses. As if union jobs grow on trees any more.

[High Plains]

5. Well, I always hear about competition...

but I have to wonder if that isn't an overly narrow view of the impact of immigrants. The economy is not a zero-sum game. 12 million illegal immigrants are 12 million people buying food and clothing and all sorts of other goods, which should create more jobs. Right?

The fact that we have large numbers of people in poverty or without health care is not the fault of the newcomers.

Perhaps all those Mexicans would have voted for Obrador. Hard to say. Actually, come to think of it, I believe Mexico makes great efforts to ensure that its citizens outside the country get to vote.

If I had an undocumented worker in my union, I call him "union brother," not "illegal alien."

These folks aren't going away. I think we are better off regularizing their status and giving them the rights the rest of us have.

[jaybeat]

7. Smoke and mirrors to make us fight each other instead of those responsible

The economy is not a zero-sum game. 12 million illegal immigrants are 12 million people buying food and clothing and all sorts of other goods, which should create more jobs. Right?

True, but most economic refugees send a large portion of their earnings back to their families abroad. The Mexican economy, for one, would collapse tomorrow without those payments.

The fact that we have large numbers of people in poverty or without health care is not the fault of the newcomers.

Of course not. It is the fault of the same folks that want to be able to continue to employ an underclass without rights, that will continue to depress salaries and labor standards here and in other countries. When "capital" is "free" to move to where labor is cheapest, everyone looses, whether they stay at home or emigrate in hopes of a better life. Those who have health care in the US are loosing it, because their employers can claim (rightly in some cases, er, GM?) that they are at a competitive disadvantage compared to countries w/state-funded health care. Problem is, they want to drop their employer-paid coverage and at the same time fund Repuke politicians who prattle on about the evils of "socialized medicine."

They are also the same ones that try and get one group of workers (US citizens) to scapegoat another group of workers (non-US citizens), so they don't unite against their common enemy. Nice.

These folks aren't going away. I think we are better off regularizing their status and giving them the rights the rest of us have.

I think that's absolutely right. However I don't like the part of the current bill that would "shut the door" to being people being "regularized" and would instead create a legal underclass with no rights. When folks have no rights and can be sent back on the whim of their employer, they will put up with all kinds of bad treatment, which in turn depresses wages and standards for everyone.