We Made Them Rich and They Called Us Criminals

By David Bacon, TruthOut.org. Posted June 23, 2009.

Since the Obama administration announced that it would push for a comprehensive immigration reform based on those ideas, unions and immigrant rights groups around the country have had to choose whether or not to defend the undocumented workers they would target. The old AFL-CIO position, adopted in 1999, would put labor in opposition, calling instead for sanctions' repeal. Some Washington, DC, immigration lobbying groups, however, have decided to support the administration policy.

One of them, Reform Immigration for America, says that "any employment verification system should determine employment authorization accurately and efficiently." And the AFL-CIO and the breakaway labor federation Change to Win recently agreed on a new immigration position that supports a "secure and effective worker authorization mechanism ... one that determines employment authorization accurately while providing maximum protection for workers."

At Overhill Farms, the 254 fired workers might ask what kind of protection the authors of the statement have in mind. They paid union dues for many years, yet a work authorization program that prohibits their employment in effect justifies their firing. Would their union defend them, or would it sit by while they lose their jobs?

"The union should try to stop people from losing their jobs," says Erlinda Silerio. "It should try to get the company to hire us back, and pay compensation for the time we've been out. It should comm?nicate with us and keep us informed." But, Agustiano says, " this is a month and a half later, and they still haven't had any meetings with us."

Grant says UFCW Local 770 filed grievances over the firings, but without an expedited procedure, the legal process could drag out for months. Meanwhile, it plans a meeting to connect workers with resources for paying rent and utilities, immigration lawyers and a food distribution. And the local did try to convince the company beforehand, he says, not to fire the workers.

The tension between workers and the union highlights the problem of labor support for work authorization. How will unions fight to defend people like the women at Overhill, and at the same time agree that people without authorization shouldn't be working?

This was the problem debated at the AFL-CIO convention, which took place in Los Angeles in 1999. If existing unions don't actively defend those workers, who can blame them if they try to form or find unions who will? Nativo Lopez and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana last year took the initial steps to form such a union, the Hermandad General de Trabajadores Union Internacional. That new organization, which will organize workers on a community basis, opposes employer sanctions and advocates helping workers to resist them. "When I look around Vernon," Lopez says, "all I see are other factories like Overhill, filled with immigrant workers in the same abysmal conditions. If they all start firing people as they have here, this place will look like a war zone. But if we fight to defend people, we can organize them."

Grant agrees that sanctions are a bad idea. "The companies exploit workers, and then claim that sanctions require them to fire them when it's convenient. Firings like the ones at Overhill are the consequence," he says. "It is a clear example of what's wrong."

What attracts the fired workers to the Hermandad is that it goes beyond the legal machinery of the grievance procedure, and organizes an active resistance. Although Overhill lawyers have threatened Lopez, the organization has discussed plans to conduct a consumer education program, because Overhill sells its products to fast food chains like Jack-in-the-Box, Panda Express and Pollo Loco. "We're their customers," Agustiano says, "and we're going to tell the media what happened to us."

Fueling that determination is economic pain. Agustiano says "we don't even have enough money for food. I went to local churches with a friend, asking for it." Silerio, a single mother with a teenage daughter, says "We're desperate. And there are single mothers here with more children, and couples who've been fired, who both worked in this factory."

But anger is stronger than hunger. "The company treats us like criminals," Agustiano charges. "I worked there for 18 years. Was I a criminal when I was working all those years?"

See more stories tagged with: labor, immigration, unions

David Bacon is the author of several books, the most recent of which is Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.

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