Unions Questioning Sanctions Against Employers Over Hiring

In an indication of the dramatic demographic change sweeping U.S. labor, support is building within the AFL-CIO for a new amnesty and an end to sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers.

Backed by some of the labor movement’s most aggressive and fastest-growing unions, the proposal--to be discussed at the AFL-CIO national convention in Los Angeles this morning--is the latest and most substantial of several recent calls for amnesty, an idea that would have been ridiculed only a few years ago.

Supporters from unions representing janitors, garment workers, hotel housekeeping staffers, restaurant workers, field hands and garment workers argued that labor needs to embrace immigrants--and provide tangible evidence of that support--if the movement is to survive. They said employers use the law to intimidate or fire workers who are trying to form a union.

But adopting such a position would be a sea change for U.S. labor, which was a driving force behind the employer sanctions provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The law granted amnesty to millions of existing undocumented residents, but also made it illegal for employers to hire workers without immigration papers in the future.

At that time, many unions viewed undocumented immigrants as potential strikebreakers and a threat to the job security and wages of their members. Since then, demographics have shifted in many industries--particularly those involving low-wage, low-skilled workers, which are now heavily immigrant in California and other high-immigration states.

The leadership in many unions has undergone a similar shift, although that is not universally true.

Neither is support for the amnesty plan universal. Leaders of several prominent unions that have large immigrant membership, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, said they were opposed to the resolution. “We just didn’t think it was in the best interest of our members,” said Sean Harrigan, regional director of the UFCW, which represents thousands of immigrants in meatpacking.

Among many in the UFCW rank and file, however, sentiments ran strongly the other way. “I’ve been a member 18 years and an organizer for two, and I can tell you, the biggest hurdle I face is fear of retaliation by undocumented workers,” said Roger Rivera, of UFCW Local 428 in San Jose. “The sanctions aren’t doing what they were supposed to do. They’ve become another tool for employers.”

Intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering by AFL-CIO officials appears to have headed off what could have been a divisive vote on the resolution. Instead, it will be briefly debated and sent to committee, while the ideas will be taken up at four AFL-CIO “town hall” meetings on immigrant workers to be held in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and New York early this winter.

A report on those meetings will be presented to the AFL-CIO executive council in January, and backers hope the council will vote at that time.

“We have to build consensus within the labor movement first,” said Eliseo Medina, vice president of the Service Employees International Union, who helped write the resolution but who said there did not appear to be sufficient support to force a vote today.

The maneuvering came during the federation’s first national convention in Los Angeles, a location chosen in part for its diversity and its success in organizing immigrants. The opening ceremonies Monday were a raucous celebration of that success, and speeches were peppered with chants of “Si, se puede,” or “Yes, it can be done”--the oath of courage for Spanish-speaking immigrant workers.

Backers said they hope labor will use its political muscle to raise awareness of immigrant worker problems in the 2000 campaigns.

The effort comes at a time of increasing calls among growers and hotel and restaurant industries, as well as government officials in the U.S. and Mexico, for an enhanced guest-worker program, which would allow immigrants to enter for a limited time to perform a specific job.

California growers had hoped to have a bill introduced this session that would include a guest-worker program with an “earned amnesty” that would grant legal residency to workers after a period of three or five years in agriculture.

“Our position is that we should give undocumented workers amnesty and not go after these slave programs,” said the United Farm Workers’ Dolores Huerta, who this summer independently lobbied for amnesty in Washington.

The Southwest Voter Registration Project, which has registered hundreds of thousands of new citizen voters, also called for an amnesty program for undocumented workers this summer.