Los Angeles is a city of immigrants. It is also a city of unions. And in California, these two constituencies were essentially merged into one.
It should therefore not be surprising that federal immigration raids at workplaces around the County of Los Angeles this week trigger the biggest demonstrations to date against the repression of the immigration of President Trump.
The first day of the demonstrations, David Huerta, president of the California section of the International Union of Service of the Service and the grandson of Mexican agricultural workers, was arrested and hospitalized for a head injury after being pushed by a federal agent. The officials said that he was blocking the police carrying out an immigration raid, and his detention addressed a series of mobilizations nationwide.
During a rally convened in a hurry before the Ministry of Justice in Washington, DC on Monday, some of the best brass of the Labor movement led a microphone to denounce the operations of application of immigration and demand its release.
“Our country suffers when these military raids tear families,” said Liz Shuler, the president of AFL-Cio, standing in a group of signs reading “David Free”. “One thing that the administration should know about this community is that we leave no one!” Huerta was released under deposit later in the day and still faced accusations.
It was not always in the American unions. Historically, they often considered immigrants with suspicion, likely to reduce wages and not want to stand up to employers. Although these attitudes still exist, union leadership has aligned itself with immigrant rights – and has been placed squarely in opposition to the Trump administration’s mass expulsion agenda.
Immigrants are now so strongly represented in many unions that even when almost all have legal work status, deportations are strongly felt because many workers have undocumented family members.
This is why Arnulfo de La Cruz, the president of a Local of Seiu who represents about half a million long-term care workers in California, says that the reaction to the application of immigration to Los Angeles was so strong.
“As you perform actions that separate families, it is the worst result in the world,” said Mr. de La Cruz. “It changes life. He launches your family finances, your loved ones in chaos. ”
Many union contracts are now protecting undocumented immigrants. Some, for example, prescribe a process that prevents management from immediately dismissing employees when the federal government signals a gap between immigration verification documents and official social security files. Others prevent employers from venericating immigration status after hiring a member of the union.
The unions also maintain legal assistance funds to help their members have immigration problems and educate workers and employers on what to do if the application of immigration visits their workplaces.
Cecily Myart-Cruz, the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Union, said that some of her members were undocumented, just like many of their students. She felt fear during the graduation ceremony of her own son this week. “I had parents who came to tell me:” Hi, you don’t know me. I am a teacher, but what should I do if the ice comes to our community? “” Said Ms. Myart-Cruz, using the acronym for immigration and customs application. “That makes it our business.”
The path to the merger of the interests of the Union and immigrants In Los Angeles, began in the 1990s, while waves of immigrants from Latin America and Asia came to dominate unpaid industries such as hospitality, clothing production, storage and construction.
The congress adopted an immigration law in 1986 which granted amnesty to three million immigrants while making people without appropriate documentation. This gave birth to the shadow labor on which many companies came.
“The work has adopted immigrant workers more openly because they are a broader part of the workforce,” said Victor Sanchez, Executive Director of Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a defense group founded by a coalition of labor organizers and immigrants. “Most often, they are in sectors with low salary of the economy. The intersection of this fact as well as the immigration status is very clear. ”
New leaders were born from these communities to direct Labor organizations. Miguel Contreras, who trained with the agricultural workers of United, then went to the organization of the hotel, redid the political strategy of the Los Angeles County Federation around immigrants. He channeled activism against the 187 proposal, a 1994 voting initiative which denied public services to undocumented immigrants and was deemed unconstitutional in 1998.
Maria Elena Durazo, the wife of Mr. Contreras and a hotel organizer, resumed the federation after her death in 2005 and is now a state senator. During this period, which had been a conservative city led by the business elite had started to take a more progressive hue. Politicians supported by the Labor Federation campaigned against the application of the Immigration Law Police and for the increase in the minimum wage.
In recent years, unions and their allies have worked to develop in other places where many immigrants work when they arrive for the first time in the country – such as day workers or in fast food restaurants. Although these efforts have not generally been transformed into a legally recognized unions, they have given workers’ centers who try to protect the rights of workers on work. In recent years, the organization has been helped by a policy of administration of Biden who protected immigrants from the expulsion when they cooperate the investigation into abuse by their employers.
Victor Narro, project manager at the University of California in Los Angeles Center, carried out a campaign to organize washing workers in Los Angeles, who then spread to Chicago and New York. Mr. Narro spent this week organizing aid for the families of undocumented workers owned by federal civil servants, as well as educating them on their rights work on their rights.
“We feel fear, but we also feel deep resilience because we are part of the networks,” said Narro. “This solidarity becomes real, it is a force.”
Unions from other parts of the country also put pressure on immigrant rights. In New York, for example, the unions supported a bill that would prevent State officials from finding out of immigration status.
This tight alignment between immigrants and unions, however, does not also extend across the country. Many unions have not adopted immigrant rights as well as their own struggle. And in the South, where most states have so -called right -wing law laws that make organization more difficult, labor defenders and immigrants do not have political weight to protect undocumented immigrants.
Take Florida, where Governor Ron Desantis mobilized those responsible for the application of state laws to help the application of immigration and where the legislator has promulgated a series of laws strengthening criminal sanctions for undocumented immigrants in the state. Florida unions have resisted these efforts, in vain.
Rich Templin, the political director of the state AFL-CIO section, said its members had not completely embraced immigrants, but they arrive. He calls it an evolution.
“” I wouldn’t say that we are still there, “said M. Templin.” But it is definitely moving from a space of them as “the other”. “”
Madeline Janis, who co -founded the Los Angeles Alliance for a new economy with Ms. Durazo, helped generate the city’s metamorphosis in a municipality led by democrats motivated by unions centered on immigrants. She is now co -director of Jobs to Move America, a non -profit organization that works to increase labor standards on state -supported projects.
She also works in southern states, such as Alabama, where there is much less support for immigrants and unions. With the organization of patients, she suggests, attitudes may change.
“When I am in Alabama, I remember a lot from where I grew up, who had a republican mayor, where there was massive segregation and ill -treatment of immigrants,” said Janis. “What continues to date, of course. But the difference is then and now is very important.”
