Rights Group Avoids Split With Latino Organizations : Minorities: A pledge to support the repeal of employer sanctions settles the dispute. The promises may create new problems for the coalition.

Latino organizations abruptly canceled plans for a dramatic exit from the nation’s premier civil rights coalition Tuesday after several civil rights leaders promised to support repeal of employer sanctions in the nation’s immigration law.

The National Council of La Raza had issued a news release Tuesday saying it would picket the 40th annual dinner of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights that evening, and would walk out during the dinner to protest the conference’s earlier decision to study sanctions, rather than oppose them.

Penalties against employers who hire illegal aliens are mandated in the 1986 Immigration Reform Act, which also provided amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. Opponents of the penalties say they result in discrimination against all Latino workers.

“We can no longer belong to a coalition which neither respects nor supports the civil rights of the Hispanic community,” La Raza President Raul Yzaguirre said in the statement. Officials of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said they, too, would quit the leadership conference and walk out during the dinner.

But while it was too late to cancel the demonstration, the two organizations abandoned their walkout plans Tuesday afternoon after Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks invited the groups to meet with him and an ad hoc group of other civil rights leaders. Hooks is executive director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and chairman of the leadership conference.

“During a last-minute meeting of some key leaders within the leadership conference, a series of very strong pleas were made for us to not leave,” said Charles Kamasaki, vice president of La Raza. “After listening, we agreed.”

Supporters organized by La Raza apparently did not hear about the agreement in time, and about 100 chanted outside the dinner at a Washington hotel.

Hooks could not speak officially for the coalition of 183 minority, religious and labor groups under the leadership conference umbrella, since decisions are reached by unanimous consent of its executive committee. Last week, for example, the committee ended up not supporting repeal of sanctions when the AFL-CIO member voiced opposition.

But the ad hoc group Tuesday promised the Latino leaders that they and their constituent organizations would work for repeal, La Raza officials said. Moreover, Hooks and others present promised to discuss changing the leadership conference’s rules so that a single member cannot block the coalition from taking action supported by the overwhelming majority of its members.

The promises, however, may create another conflict within the coalition. Organized labor supports sanctions as a way to reduce hiring of illegal aliens, often at wages that undermine union contracts. No one representing organized labor was present at Tuesday’s hastily called meeting.

Moreover, when the AFL-CIO last week blocked unanimous agreement, it in effect allowed major black organizations to retain a murky position on sanctions. Some observers note that many black Americans also feel threatened by immigrant labor, and thus the issue of sanctions provides a potentially divisive issue.

Hooks said Tuesday night that due to pressure from Latino groups, the NAACP’s resolution committee had agreed to support repeal of sanctions. The issue must now go before a vote of the membership at the organization’s convention in July in Los Angeles.

Hooks said the AFL-CIO has “an intellectually respectable position,” and he understands its impact on the workplace. On the other hand, he said, he understands the pain sanctions have caused Latino groups.

“I don’t think this will create a permanent rupture in the fabric” of the leadership conference, he said.

After the meeting with Hooks, Kamasaki said: “We were emotionally touched by what was said in that meeting.” But, he added: “The litmus test is what happens on the sanctions issue. We’re going to watch it very closely.”