Mahony Urges Labor to Assist Exploited Immigrant Workers

At the Catholic Labor Institute’s annual Labor Day breakfast Monday, Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony urged the Los Angeles labor movement to “stand up” for growing numbers of exploited, immigrant workers in Southern California.

In particular, Mahony said there are at least 40,000 unorganized domestic workers in Los Angeles County, many laboring in low-wage jobs with no benefits.

“Many of them are not documented, afraid to even speak of their own rights,” he said.

The archbishop said he had recently met with a San Diego County group trying to organize the domestics, and he prodded the nearly 1,000 labor officials present to give whatever aid they could to such efforts.

“It’s a tough, tough organizing situation; these people are so vulnerable,” he said, noting that historically, domestic workers have rarely been organized.

The group, an organization called the United Domestic Workers Union, has won contracts for domestic workers in several California counties, including San Diego.

Based in National City, the organization has won the contracts for the thousands of domestic workers who keep house and care for elderly and disabled people under a government-funded program.

Although the domestics generally are hired by individual persons, they are often paid with state funds, and the union takes the position that they should receive uniform wages and benefits in an attempt to avoid the sort of exploitation that can exist if the domestics are considered independent contractors.

Mahony’s plea came shortly before Gerald F. McTeague, an Irish-born meat cutter who is now secretary-treasurer of one of the largest local unions in California--United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 770--was presented the institute’s distinguished service award.

Major Effort

Much of the breakfast at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Los Angeles was devoted to excoriating the labor policies of the Reagan and Deukmejian administrations and exhortations to the labor officials there to mount a major effort on behalf of Democratic candidates this fall to regain control of the U.S. Senate.

“We must elect liberals who are committed to programs that advance the masses of Americans, not just the cause of capital,” said John F. Henning, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation.

Similar calls were made at Labor Day events across the country.

“Our job is to mobilize the dissatisfaction with the Reagan Administration . . . and thus to turn it into a collective vote against Reagan’s political allies at the polls,” said Owen Bieber, president of the United Auto Workers, at a Detroit rally.

“We must elect political leaders who will substitute common sense, prudent planning and social compassion for the ruinous policies that have given us record trade and budget deficits, while elevating corporate and individual greed along with reckless militarism as prevailing national values,” he added.

March Staged

Approximately, 165,000 people attended two Labor Day rallies in Detroit, and 40,000 people, headed by AFL-CIO Presdient Lane Kirkland, marched in Chicago.

But New York City, which first started having Labor Day parades in 1882, twelve years before federal legislation was passed designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day, had no parade this year.

“It was felt that the members who participate and the people who do the work would welcome a day off,” said Thomas Van Arsdale, head of the New York Labor Council.

In Los Angeles, the Catholic Labor Institute held its 40th consecutive Labor Day breakfast. A bevy of Democratic politicians, including U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston of California, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, who are running for reelection, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, making an uphill bid to unseat Gov. George Deukmejian, were among the featured speakers.

Van de Kamp praised the labor movement as “the greatest force for democracy, equal opportunity and racial justice in this nation.”

Bradley praised the trade union movement for its critical role in giving American workers “the highest standard of living in the world.” He criticized Secretary of Labor William E. Brock for issuing a three-page Labor Day message that made no mention of unions, a reflection, he said, of the anti-union attitude of the Reagan Administration.

“This is your day,” Bradley said. “There are trade union picnics and celebrations all over the state. I’m going to four of them.”

It may have been Labor Day, but it clearly is not labor’s finest hour. A Labor Department report recently noted that between 1979 and 1984, 11.5 million workers lost their jobs because of plant closings or layoffs. Half the workers who were able to find new jobs got ones that paid less.

Trade Deficit

In addition, a Commerce Department report, noted AFL-CIO President Kirkland, said that in 1984 alone, 2.3 million manufacturing workers were displaced because of the nation’s trade deficit.

Real average weekly earnings for U.S. production workers declined by 9% from 1977 to 1985, Kirkland added in his official Labor Day message.

Unemployment currently is hovering at 6.9%, with little prospect that it will drop much further any time soon, according to many economists. The figure is considerably below the goal of 4% set by the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978. Co-author Augustus F. Hawkins, who has represented South Central Los Angeles in the House of Representatives since 1962, was among the honorees at Monday’s breakfast.

The Democrat and several other speakers said they deplored the fact that unemployment has remained so high.

“Full employment is the foundation of a just economy,” said Mahony, quoting the U.S. Catholic Bishops forthcoming pastoral letter on the economy, “Justice for All.”

He said the report will call for greater training and retraining programs by American private industry and increased support by the government for direct job-creation programs.

Audience Reminded

But Mahony also used his address to remind the audience of the church’s position on the fundamental importance of work.

“Human labor has great dignity because it is of God’s making,” he said.