Labor Joins La Marcha

Amy Taylor

September 08, 2006

Amy Taylor is Immigration Project coordinator for the  Drum Major Institute for Public Policy.

Immigrant workers and their supporters gathered in Washington Thursday, capping a week of national protests that began, aptly enough, over the Labor Day weekend. Marchers were calling on Congress to work on comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. What’s notable about this latest series of rallies is that, marching along immigrant rights advocates and immigrant families, was a large labor union contingent. There is one obvious reason for labor’s ardent support—increasing the total number of organized workers will increase the labor movement’s clout. But there is more to the story. 

Historically, labor unions have not always been such vocal supporters of America’s newest workers. Although some, like the United Farm Workers of America, have been supporters of immigrant rights for decades, rhetoric about immigrants stealing the jobs of U.S.-born workers and pushing down wages has often driven a wedge between organized labor and immigrant communities. Some local labor unions were active supporters of immigration reform in the 1990s. However, a major turning point came in 2000 when the AFL-CIO formally adopted a pro-immigrant platform after years of internal bickering on the issue. A federation of seven labor unions called Change to Win, led by SEIU and UNITE-HERE, are in the forefront of this new movement. Other labor unions are climbing on board as well.

So what has changed? Brave, new labor leaders have taken a fresh look at the problem and realized the true source of wage depression and unfair labor competition is not immigrant workers themselves but rather a system of broken immigration laws. A two-tiered labor system has emerged from undocumented workers’ inability to access full rights in the workplace. Union leaders have also recognized that in many industries, immigrants are the workforce, and might be more willing to join the ranks of labor unions if they obtain legal status. The current immigration system, which offers no realistic chance at legalization for millions of undocumented workers, has created a perpetual underclass of immigrant workers. A smart immigration policy would work to eliminate this two-tiered system and allow all workers to compete on an even playing field.

Many undocumented workers are particularly vulnerable to workplace abuses because they live in constant fear of deportation. Countless employers take advantage of this fear by denying legal rights to their employees. While minimum wage and overtime laws technically cover undocumented workers, many are reluctant to demand legal compensation for fear of retaliation. Unscrupulous employers looking to cut costs will readily hire a compliant pool of cheaper labor as long as it is available. This practice threatens to depress wages and working conditions for all workers. In some cases, U.S.-born workers are effectively shut out of whole industries in which employers hire predominantly undocumented immigrants and labor standards are uniformly below legal minimums. In other industries, employers who don’t hire undocumented workers complain of unfair competition from those who do. In both of these situations, immigrant workers’ lack of workplace rights undermines the ability of all working people to secure jobs that provide a middle-class standard of living.

And that is why the labor unions were chanting alongside the immigrant workers and families yesterday in Washington. However clear this may all seem to labor unions and other supporters of immigration reform, lawmakers in Washington seem to have strayed off course. Most analysts now predict that there is little chance any compromise will be reached before the midterm elections in November. The immigration hearings held over the summer have further undermined the American middle class by shifting the current debate away from comprehensive reform and toward an immigration policy focused exclusively on border control.

Although participants at this week’s marches are clearly relieved that the draconian “Sensenbrenner Bill” passed by the House of Representatives in December seems to be too divisive to become law, they want Congress to make comprehensive reform a priority. While most people would probably agree that border security has some role to play in immigration reform, any reform measure that focuses solely on border security would fail to address the crucial stake that our nation’s workers have in this debate.