Report: Unbalanced Immigration Enforcement Hurts All Workers’ Rights
 |
||||
|
||||
When Josue Diaz, an immigrant worker and his co-workers protested the inhumane and illegal working conditions at a construction site in Texas, their employer called local police and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security. But the law enforcement officials didn’t enforce the workers’ rights or penalize the employer. They arrested the workers.
Diaz’s experience is not unusual. According to a new report released today, the federal government’s immigration enforcement in recent years—including a heavy reliance on raids and often inadequately trained enforcement agents—has severely undermined efforts to protect workers’ rights, which in turn harms both immigrant and native-born workers alike.
The comprehensive report, “ICED OUT: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights,” was prepared by the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project (NELP). Drawing on case studies like Diaz’s from across the country, the report examines a series of alarming incidents between 2005 and 2008.
AFL-CIO, Change to Win Agree on Joint Immigration Framework
The AFL-CIO and Change to Win (CtW) today announced a historic joint unity framework for immigration reform. The joint announcement and proposal is a critical sign of support for the Obama administration and Congress to address immigration reform and to ensure that the issue remains a priority. It also signals that immigration reform is an important part of economic recovery.
The framework for comprehensive reform was developed with the guidance of former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall and the Economic Policy Institute.
In a statement, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said:
Our nation’s broken immigration system isn’t working for anybody—not immigrant workers who are routinely exploited by companies and not U.S.-born workers whose living standards are being undermined by the creation of a new “underclass.”
As a part of broad-based economic recovery, we need a comprehensive solution—and soon. The development of a unified labor position, a position centered on workers’ rights, puts us on the path to a legislative solution.
Carwash Campaign Highlights Success of Community-Labor Teamwork
One of the best ways for unions to reach out to new groups of workers is by joining with community-based worker centers across the country—and the campaign to gain better working conditions for carwash workers in Los Angeles recently has done just that, according to several union leaders involved in the campaign.
AFL-CIO General Counsel Jon Hiatt, speaking at a brown bag discussion yesterday at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., said worker centers and unions have a lot in common. They both fight for enforcement of wage and hour laws, oppose misclassification of workers and they fight for immigrant rights. Hiatt says:
We have the experience, the expertise. Worker centers have a strong community base. Bringing the two movements together is good for workers. A few years ago, I couldn’t imagine local or national unions would be working so closely with worker centers.
