Fired Latino Workers at Pomona College Fight Back
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Sarah Seltzer writes for Alternet and other online publications and sends us this.
When a group of longtime food service employees of Pomona College in California—a prominent liberal arts school—lost their jobs due to their immigration status, it got an already tense campus talking. This wasn’t an ordinary firing, or even an unfortunate casualty of the nasty wave of anti-immigration sentiment. To people on campus who had been helping the workers speak up for their rights, it felt like union-busting. The terminated workers had been employed on campus for years, but only after they began a drive toward unionization with UNITEHERE! was their immigration status investigated by the college.
Because the internal investigation, which led to their dismissal, was self-initiated and not due to any government agency or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interference, the timing made many on campus and elsewhere cry foul. Indeed, 16 of 17 employees whose jobs were taken from them happened to be food services workers—the very group trying to unionize. Read the rest of this entry »
National DREAM Youth Activist Shackled, Targeted for Deportation
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Jennifer Angarita in AFL-CIO Field Mobilization sends us this report.
From marches to teach-ins, activists across the country have mobilized around the DREAM Act, a common-sense immigration bill for students who were brought to the United States at a young age and who serve in the military or attend college for at least two years. Many have even risked deportation and detention to raise awareness of their cause. Matias Ramos is a prominent DREAM leader and UCLA graduate who was detained last year by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) while traveling.
After his regular check-in with ICE, Matias was shackled with an electronic monitoring device and given 14 days to leave the country, his only home. Matias was brought to the United States as a child, was raised here and considers himself American. Despite having his electronic shackles removed, Matias still faces deportation.
He says:
Today, I am confronted not only with the uncertainty of my situation, but also with knowing that I am not the only one caught in Obama’s deportation dragnet.
Two Federal Employees Killed in Line of Duty
The president of the nation’s largest federal employees’ union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and U.S. marshals today issued the following statement after the Tuesday night ambush of two ICE agents in Mexico, one of whom was killed, and the Wednesday morning shooting in West Virginia that resulted in the killing of one federal marshal and wounding of two other marshals in the line of duty.
“In the past two days, two dedicated federal employees have been killed and three others wounded in the line of duty. These separate incidents point to the risk that federal employees face daily in service to the American public. We are deeply saddened by the loss of ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata and Deputy U.S. Marshal Derek Hotsinpiller. We wish condolences to both of their families,” said John Gage, president of AFGE.
AFL-CIO Union Summer: ‘This Internship Has Changed Me’
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The AFL-CIO’s Union Summer for Jobs 2010, a 10-week educational internship in which participants are introduced to the labor movement, goes well beyond the average internship.
Ask Anthony Scorzo. His internship has included learning about UCubed, a social network for unemployed workers launched earlier this year by the Machinists (IAM). Scorzo can relate to the problems faced by unemployed workers. He’s a laid-off communications electrician and Electrical Workers (IBEW) member, so he knows what they’re going through.
We’re canvassing at unemployment offices, holding rallies outside the offices of politicians who voted against the jobs bill, starting potlucks in neighborhoods and community centers. There’s a lot of people out of work. They need benefits now. I’m one of them.
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.
