Luisa Blue Is New APALA President
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Luisa Blue is the new president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA). She succeeds John Delloro, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack last June. Blue was first vice president of APALA, one of six AFL-CIO constituency groups.
This is the second time in the top chair for Blue, who served as APALA’s president from 2001–2005, when she became the first woman and the first Filipino to hold that post.
Currently the organizing coordinator for SEIU in California, Blue began her union career in 1977 as shop steward for her San Francisco local union, whose members were primarily registered nurses. She became president of several local unions and was organizing director for SEIU Local 790, where she helped more than 10,000 workers join unions in five years. She also was instrumental in the successful effort to organize airport screeners— predominantly Asian immigrants—at the San Francisco airport.
Workers Mourn APALA President John Delloro
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John Delloro, president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), died unexpectedly Saturday after suffering a heart attack.
Delloro, a member of AFT, was elected as APALA’s president in 2009. During his tenure at APALA, the AFL-CIO convened the first National Asian Pacific American Workers’ Rights Hearing in Washington D.C., in November 2009. Following the hearing, Delloro was a principal author of “Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence,” a report from the hearing. Prior to his election, he served as president of the Los Angeles chapter of APALA and was an organizer for HERE, AFSCME and SEIU.
APALA First Vice President Luisa Blue said:
We are all saddened by the sudden passing of John Delloro, a brilliant young labor leader, who made incredible contributions to APALA and to the U.S. labor movement.
Immigrant Students Fight for the American DREAM
Just as young workers and students were the energy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, immigrant students are becoming a strong force in the drive for comprehensive immigration reform that will allow them to pursue the American Dream. On Monday, five undocumented college students staged a sit-in at Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) office in Tucson (see video). Three of the protestors were arrested and face possible deportation.
The students were demanding McCain support the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which would give conditional legal status and eventual citizenship to undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the United States as minors and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment.
Asian Pacific Americans Tell Their Stories at First National Workers’ Rights Hearing
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Ricky Lau, an electrician with the Electrical Workers (IBEW) and a Chinese immigrant, worked for 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week for his former employer, a contracting company. He and his mostly immigrant co-workers, many of whom did not speak English, were ripped off, he says. While they worked 60 to 70 hours, their weekly time cards read 16 to 20 hours. They had no benefits and no health care coverage.
Fed up, he and three other co-workers left the company and joined IBEW. With the help of his union, Lau and the other workers have been able to assert themselves. Now the four workers are suing the company in a class-action suit for back wages.
APALA Reaches Out to Young Workers
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The future of the union and social justice movements lies in reaching out to college students, young workers and young voters who are energized by the election of Barack Obama.
Last week, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) took a big step toward uniting the younger generation and the union movement by bringing together more than 400 union members, community allies and student leaders to discuss the best strategies for working together.
“Generations United, Organizing for Change,” the theme for APALA’s 10th Biennial Convention in Las Vegas last week, emphasized the first national gathering of Asian Pacific American workers and students. The convention provided participants with a renewed sense of optimism for multigenerational leadership in the union movement as well as in the broader struggle for social and economic justice, convention organizers say.
