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.
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.
May Day Rallies Will Support Workers’ and Immigrant Rights
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This May Day, working people are rallying across the country to oppose attacks on workers’ rights and immigrant rights. Just as we did on April 4, working people will declare: “Somos Unos—Respeten Nuestros Derechos” or “We Are One—Respect Our Rights.”
Workers’ rights and immigrant rights are connected. CEO-backed politicians are targeting all working people—including immigrants—with their corporate-sponsored political agenda and continuing power grab. In addition to demanding protection for collective bargaining and other workers’ rights, ralliers will call for comprehensive immigration reform and passage of the DREAM Act, which would provide undocumented young people a pathway to legal residency through higher education or service in the military.
AFL-CIO, Allies Launch Ad Campaign for DREAM Act
Today the AFL-CIO, SEIU, the Campaign for Community Change, the Reform Immigration for America Campaign and America’s Voice launched a six-figure advertising campaign aimed at Republican senators whose votes will be crucial to passing the DREAM Act during the current lame-duck session of Congress.
The ads will run on radio and in print publications through Friday in Portland, Maine; Boston; Miami; Houston; and Las Vegas. (Click on the Boston-area radio ad above.)
US Student Association Hearts AFL-CIO DREAM Act Support
Cool. The United States Student Association (USSA) is tweeting about the AFL-CIO’s move last week to call on Congress to pass the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) as a down payment on comprehensive immigration reform.
USSA President Lindsay McCluskey says:
USSA stands in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the labor movement as we urge Congress to open the college doors to thousands of the nation’s best and brightest undocumented students. Access to higher education is a fundamental right and is being violated by our current education and immigration laws. Passage of the DREAM Act will lead to and strengthen comprehensive immigration reform that will move our country closer to a truly just society.
Retweet USSA’s tweet: RT @USStudents stands in solidarity w/ @AFLCIO on calling 4 #DREAMAct as a down payment on comp. immigration reform http://tinyurl.com/24epu78
Film ‘Entre Nos’ Shows Human Side of Immigration Debate
The most innocent victims of our nation’s broken immigration system are children. In 2008, four million U.S.-born citizen children had at least one undocumented parent. Each of those 4 million American children worry every day that one of their parents might not be home when they return from school.
Children like 11-year-old Heidi Ruby Portugal who told reporters and members of Congress last month that before her mother’s detention, she admired “all uniformed people that protect our country.”
It’s a pity that those thoughts are gone thanks to all those mistreatments and the arrests….They took away the most precious thing that children have, our mother. With one hit they took away my smile and my happiness.
Trumka at Netroots Nation: New Industrial Policy for a Globalized World
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka laid out a 21st century U.S. economic policy at today’s lunchtime keynote session at Netroots Nation before a diverse crowd of 2,000 progressive political activists. Restoring the nation’s middle class in part means returning to a “real economy”—one in which we make things, rather than move around complex financial products, Trumka said. Strengthening U.S. manufacturing must be part of the process to reverse five decades of stagnating wages.
We have to think big and we have to go big. We have to let go of this notion that we can’t compete in this world. We can compete. Other countries are already doing this and so can we. We can’t get left behind.
Speaking as part of a panel on Building a Progressive Economic Vision, Trumka outlined the need for the the nation to invest in infrastructure, implement fair trade policies, change our tax policies, enact comprehensive immigration reform and reform our broken labor laws. The full panel included consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, progressive Florida Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, Center for Community Change Executive Director Deepak Bhargava, Green for All’s Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and National People’s Action Executive Director George Goehl. (Watch it here.)
Netroots Nation: Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows
Earlier this week in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined Labor Secretary Hilda Solis for a remarkable discussion on the importance of immigration reform. On Thursday, panelists speaking on ”Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows” at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas amplified President Trumka and Secretary Solis’ call to action.
Moderating the discussion at Netroots Nation was Mark Lauritsen, UFCW international vice president and director of Food Processing, Packing and Manufacturing Division, who opened with an emotional recounting of both the positive and negative sides of immigration, particularly in the meatpacking industry and how employers use immigration as a tool to oppress workers.
What America needs is an immigration system that works for all America’s workers.
Solis, Trumka Talk Immigration Reform, Worker Rights on Live Webcast
Join Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for a live video webcast Monday to address the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform from a worker rights perspective. The webcast will air at 1 p.m. EDT.
Solis will explore the corporate exploitation of undocumented immigrant workers and the depressing effect it has on labor standards nationally. She also will outline how fixing our nation’s broken immigration system is essential to advancing the rights of all workers.
Trumka will review the union movement’s immigration policy and discuss the AFL-CIO’s plans to advance this important piece of our program to create an economy that works for everyone. Click here to read Trumka’s recent speech on the need for immigration reform and here for video excerpts.
Trumka: Immigration Reform Crucial For New Economy
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The United States needs a new economic strategy to replace the failed model of the past 30 years–one that focuses on developing a workforce with world class skills and world class rights and trade policies that serve the interests of the American people, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the City Club of Cleveland today.
But we cannot talk about any meaningful workforce strategy without confronting our own “contradictions, hypocrisy and history on immigration,” he said. In a dynamic global economy in the 21st century,
we simply cannot afford to have millions of hard-working people without legal protections, without meaningful access to higher education, shut off from the high-wage, high-productivity economy.
It is just too costly to waste all that talent and strength and drive.
(Trumka will be live on “America’s Workforce” radio show on WERE Radio 1490 AM at 4 p.m. EDT. Click here to hear the broadcast.)
