Rep. Ellison Joins Faith and Labor Leaders in Urging Release of Jailed Workers
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Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota, follows up on the Indian guest workers who this past spring and summer waged a hunger strike for justice. The welders and pipe fitters had been lured from their native India to the United States with promises of green cards and good jobs at Signal International’s shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. Once there, they found themselves held in modern-day forced labor, victims of a human-trafficking scheme under the guise of the H-2B guest worker program. Now, 23 of the workers have been jailed by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Community leaders in Minnesota—including Congressman Keith Ellison and the Rev. Craig Johnson, bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—issued a call for the release of 23 workers from India held in the Fargo, N.D., jail by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Bush Denies Bargaining Rights to 8,600 Federal Workers
In a final-days attack on workers’ rights, President Bush yesterday issued an executive order that denies collective bargaining rights to about 8,600 federal employees who work in national security, law enforcement and intelligence.
Nearly 1,000 of the workers currently are represented by a union, and some have been for more than 30 years. The biggest group affected by the order is the 5,000 employees of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which is now part of the Justice Department.
Peter Winch, national organizer for AFGE, the largest federal employee union, says the union is determined to fight the executive order.
