Latino Heritage Month Celebrates Latino Working Families
Sept. 15-Oct. 15, Latino Heritage Month, offers a time to recognize the contributions of the nearly 47 million Latinos living in the United States and to highlight the issues facing our Latino brothers and sisters.
Representatives from Latino advocacy groups, unions, civil rights organizations, community groups and elected and appointed officials will come together to celebrate and recognize Latino working families in the United States Oct. 12 at the AFL-CIO. The theme of the evening is “Siempre Unidos. Our Legacy, Our Future: Celebrating America’s Latino Working Families.” Read the rest of this entry »
Light in the Darkness: Documentary Tells How One Town Opposed Anti-Immigrant Violence
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A new film documents the story of how a town’s residents took a stand after a hate crime killing devastated their community. “Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness,” debuts Wed., Sept. 21, at 10 p.m. EDT on PBS.
The film will air during the Not In Our Town’s National Week of Action. Between Sept. 18-24, communities across the country will host screenings, events and discussions around hate crime prevention, working to develop new ways to make their towns safer. Public media stations in 20 markets, along with partner organizations, will use the film to initiate dialogue about issues of intolerance in their communities. Read the rest of this entry »
Hershey Sit-In Exposes Employers’ Use of Subcontracts to Thwart Workers’ Rights
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A courageous group of foreign students in the United States on a cultural exchange program joined with union members and members of Jobs with Justice last week to expose the U.S. labor market’s dirty little secret: the web of subcontracting that prevents workers from exercising their rights because they don’t know exactly who employs them.
The students, who led a sit-in at a factory that is subcontracted by the Hershey Chocolate Co. in Palmyra, Pa., are on a State Department cultural exchange program (called the “J-1 Visa” program) that allows companies to hire students for summer work.
Although the students’ work directly benefits Hershey, the company claims it has no responsibility for their working conditions or pay. According to news reports, they work at a factory operated by Excel, a third-party logistics company, which passed the buck to SHS Staffing, a temp service contracted by Excel. SHS, in turn, says it only handles payroll and the workers were supplied by an outfit called the Council for Educational Travel USA (CETUSA), which supplied the workers to SHS.
‘Light in the Darkness’: Documentary Shows Town Joining Together Against Anti-Immigrant Violence
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As the national debate over immigration continues, a new film documents the story of how a town’s residents take a stand after a hate crime killing devastates their community. The documentary, “Not In Our Town: Light in the Darkness,” will debut Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 10 p.m. ET on PBS.
The story begins in 2008 when a series of attacks by a group of seven local teenagers against Latino residents of the Long Island, N.Y., town of Patchogue ends with the killing of 37-year-old Marcelo Lucero. An Ecuadorian immigrant, Lucero had been a Patchogue resident for 13 years.
Black Foreign-Born Workers Have Highest Jobless Rate
A new study dispels the myth that immigrant workers are taking good-paying jobs away from American-born workers. According to “The Low Wages of Black Immigrants,” released last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), black workers, whether they were born in the United States or in a foreign country, have the highest unemployment rate, period.
In the United States, the black unemployment rate in July was 15.9 percent, compared with an overall rate of 9.1 percent. The 12.4 percent jobless rate among black immigrant workers last year was slightly higher than for Hispanic immigrants (11.3 percent) and significantly higher than for white (7.4 percent) and Asian immigrants (7.3 percent).
AFL-CIO Reaffirms Call for Immigration Reform
The AFL-CIO Executive Council this morning reaffirmed its support for comprehensive immigration reform. Here is the entire statement issued by the council:
The AFL-CIO reaffirms its position on comprehensive immigration reform. “Enforcement only” is not the AFL-CIO’s position because it is contrary to comprehensive reform. We have serious concerns about E-verify, and do not support E-verify in its current form. If E-verify were to change, we would re-consider that position.
Trumka Honored for Defending Immigrant Workers, Families
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The United States faces grave immigration and citizenship challenges, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, and the nation must confront those challenges “with a movement to fight against intimidation, and for an economy and a nation that honors the dignity of all workers and our fundamental freedoms every single day.”
Last night, Trumka, who has spoken forcefully and often in support of immigrant workers and immigration reform, received a Hero of Our Communities Award from the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC).
The group also honored two others with “Hero” awards: Maria Teresa Kumar, founder of Voto Latino and an MSNBC political analyst, and Mia-Lia Kiernan, an organizer with the One Love Movement fighting to defend the rights of Cambodian immigrants facing deportation.
Trumka says the controversy over immigration is centuries old and that “fear, hatred and political division” have been used to pit native-born workers against immigrants and to “distract from urgent economic issues.”
Immigrants are workers, and in the end that’s really all we need to know. Because all working people must stand together and call for practical measures that improve all of our lives.
Rulings In Two Countries Affirm Immigrant Workers’ Rights
John See of AFT’s Public Affairs Department reports on two important rulings that protect the rights of immigrant workers.
Teachers across the globe are fighting back against abuse and exploitation. With the assistance of AFT and partner unions in the Philippines, the rights of teachers who came to the United States on temporary visas were affirmed recently in rulings in two countries.
The rulings involve more than 300 teachers who were recruited to come to Louisiana from the Philippines to teach in public schools. AFT began assisting the teachers last year and helped them file complaints with the U.S. Labor Department and Louisiana state labor officials. In the complaints the teachers said their passports were held by Universal Placement International (UPI), the recruiter that brought them to the United States, and they were threatened with deportation unless they paid thousands of dollars in excessive and illegal fees.
Trumka: Until DREAM Act Is Passed, Stop Deporting Our Future
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Our elected leaders should act quickly to protect the interests of our nation’s youth and working people by enacting the DREAM Act and by bringing relief to these young people who continue to be jailed and deported, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said.
Trumka commended President Obama for pushing for the DREAM Act and called on the White House to grant deferred action and other measures to DREAM Act-eligible youth—”so we can stop deporting our nation’s future doctors, engineers and teachers.”
Tens of Thousands March for Workers’ Rights, Immigration Reform
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Across the country, tens of thousands marched and rallied May 1, May Day, to call for national immigration reform and to support all workers’ rights. Just as we did on April 4, working people declared: “Somos Unos—Respeten Nuestros Derechos” or “We Are One—Respect Our Rights.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a crowd of about 100,000 in Milwaukee that “May Day is our day to stand together shoulder to shoulder for immigrant and worker rights.”
Gov. Scott Walker…has declared war on Wisconsin workers and, like you did before, you joined in a peaceful protest to say “No! No!” We reject the idea that America can no longer be a great nation and that we’re too broke to treat people fairly. We reject the notion that America can’t be the land of shared prosperity.
The crowd marched 2.5 miles across Milwaukee chanting, “this is what democracy looks like,” “sí, se peude,” “Walker eschuca estamos en la lucha” and “Wisconsin no es Arizona.”
Read Trumka’s entire speech here and click here to read more about the Milwaukee march.
