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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: AFL-CIO Moves to Embrace Day Laborers The AFL-CIO agreed today to work with a national network of day laborer organizers, a move that could bring representatives for some of the most publicly scorned illegal immigrants to the policymaking table of the nation's largest union group and provide day workers with a potent ally in local efforts to establish hiring halls and national campaigns for legalization. Six years after organized labor's pivotal policy shift toward support of illegal workers, the resolution, approved by the AFL-CIO executive council in Chicago, further cemented the struggling labor movement's embrace of illegal immigrants as key parts of the American workforce and potential union members. The partnership does not require day laborers to join unions. Research indicates about three-fourths of day laborers are in the country illegally. For the day laborers and their grassroots organizers, who have faced intense opposition in Herndon and other places, the historic agreement offers access to perks of big organized labor: Teams of expert lobbyists and lawyers and a chance to devise strategies on work-related issues with local councils of the 9 million-member AFL-CIO, which for decades saw illegal immigrants as threats to native workers and pushed for sanctions against them. "Day laborers in the United States often face the harshest forms of workplace problems, and this exploitation hurts us all," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement. "Through this watershed partnership, we will strengthen our ability to promote and enforce the workplace rights for all workers -- union and non-union, immigrant and non-immigrant alike." Today's resolution called for the AFL-CIO to affiliate with the nation's 140 worker centers -- not all of them day laborer centers -- and to specifically work with the Los Angeles-based National Day Labor Organizing Network. The group, known as NDLON, is an organization of about 30 day labor job centers and organizers, including CASA of Maryland and Tenants and Workers United in Alexandria. The alliance comes a year after four major unions split from the AFL-CIO, taking with them one-third of the confederation's membership -- including many immigrants -- and as the labor movement struggles with decades of declining membership. The percentage of the workforce represented by unions has waned from more than 35 percent in the 1950s to about 13 percent last year, including only about 8 percent of the private sector. Nearly five percent of the labor force is unauthorized, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center study. Day laborers and their hiring sites have been targeted by anti-illegal immigration activists and legislation. An immigration bill passed by the House would impose fines on job centers if they do not check laborers' work authorization. Most day laborer centers do not. "We want to build a stronger network of support for our day worker centers," Pablo Alvarado, executive director of NDLON, said in an interview "Day laborers are basically on the frontline of the immigration debate...not only centers, but corners." Officials said the groups will immediately begin pushing for workers' rights and an immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants but not a guest-worker provision, something the AFL-CIO has maintained will create a second-class workforce beholden to employers who control and could exploit their immigration status. The agreement leaves open the door for the nation's 500 local AFL-CIO councils to work with day laborer work centers if they choose. Ana Avendaño, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO, said that could include joint campaigns for minimum salaries, efforts to collect unpaid wages or skills and safety training. Day laborers represent a tiny sliver of the nation's immigrant workforce. About 117,600 day laborers solicit jobs each day, according to a national study published this year by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, New School University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Most are Latino men in the country illegally. But unions have recently been wooing day laborers, seeing them as ripe for organization and in need of champions. Most day labor jobs are in residential construction, an area where unions have little presence. And day laborers frequently fall victim to the kind of employer abuse and workplace hazards unions have long battled: Nearly half have been stiffed by their bosses or denied breaks while working, and twenty percent have been injured on the job, the national study found. Experts say organized labor saw possibility in this spring's massive immigrant demonstrations, some of which were organized by unions. Top leaders with the National Capital Immigration Coalition, which staged marches on the National Mall, work for the Service Employees International Union, one group that split from the AFL-CIO last year. "It is the recognition that these people are ready," said Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor and director of the Institute of Industrial Relations at UCLA. "So the labor movement wants to ride that wave." Not everyone agrees that joining forces with illegal immigrants is good for organized labor. In Allentown, Pa., unions of carpenters, iron workers and sheet metal workers are backing a city law prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants, arguing it would help eliminate a source of cheap labor that undercuts wages.
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#1. To: DeaconBenjamin (#0)
Day laborers and their hiring sites have been targeted by anti-illegal immigration activists and legislation. An immigration bill passed by the House would impose fines on job centers if they do not check laborers' work authorization. Most day laborer centers do not. "We want to build a stronger network of support for our day worker centers," Pablo Alvarado, executive director of NDLON, said in an interview "Day laborers are basically on the frontline of the immigration debate...not only centers, but corners." Officials said the groups will immediately begin pushing for workers' rights and an immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.... Not everyone agrees that joining forces with illegal immigrants is good for organized labor. In Allentown, Pa., unions of carpenters, iron workers and sheet metal workers are backing a city law prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants, arguing it would help eliminate a source of cheap labor that undercuts wages. Psalm 2:2-3 Well, I guess the unions have shown their true colors. They exist to rake in $$$$, and to support their masters, the Corporations, including CorpUSA. May they all go the same way....... Ezekiel 17:1-10, Matthew 15:13.
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