The UFCW has joined with labor, community, civil liberties and civil rights organizations in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s recently passed immigration law, S.B. 1070.
The suit challenges the law in five main areas: That immigration is inherently a federal issue, and federal law has supremacy; the law encroaches upon the right of minorities to travel freely without harassment; the law has a chilling effect on the First Amendment right to free speech and assembly by prohibiting individuals from soliciting work in a public place; it requires law enforcement to conduct investigatory stops of individuals without reasonable suspicion, violating the Fourth Amendment; and it singles out non-citizens for discrimination and enforcement in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In conjunction with the lawsuit, UFCW President Joe Hansen released the following statement:
“We believe S.B. 1070 is unconstitutional, un-American and that it undermines our nation’s rich immigrant history. The law effectively legalizes racial profiling and sanctions harassment and discrimination. We are filing this suit to protect the rights of our members and all workers in the state of Arizona—and to uphold the values and ideals that make our nation strong.
“The UFCW has been at the forefront of the fight for immigration reform because we have seen firsthand the devastation caused by enforcement-only strategies – we’ve seen families torn apart, we’ve seen communities destroyed and we’ve seen workers rights’ shredded. We need a comprehensive overhaul of our broken immigration system at the federal level, not regressive, racially motivated laws enacted on a state-by-state basis.”
Over 200,000 Americans gathered on the nation's mall today to demand Congress take action and pass comprehensive immigration reform.
If you couldn't make it to the rally, you can still do your part to make reform a reality by calling Congress. Go to www.ufcwaction.org to sign up and make your call.
UFCW members were out in force. You can check out some of the photos from the day below:
Joe Hansen and Eliseo Medina have a joint post up on The Huffington Post, explaining why real immigration reform will help get our economy back on track, and why reform helps all workers.
The Bush administration’s enforcement-only policy was a disaster for workers. Administration officials became masters of misdirection, as Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted terrorizing worksite raids under the guise of meaningful immigration reform.
On December 12, 2006, the Bush administration conducted massive worksite raids at six Swift and Company meatpacking plants, rounding up, detaining and criminalizing thousands of workers at each plant for doing no more than reporting to work, no more than trying to earn a living.
The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the union that today represents the workers in those plants, established a National Commission on ICE Misconduct soon after. The Commission held five hearings on those and other raids, in cities across the nation. Now it has released a reporttelling the story of the human toll exacted by the Bush administration’s enforcement-only policy, in the hope it will trigger a dialogue on immigration reform with our new administration.
On March 6th of 2007, of all the dangers that were lurking in America…of all the threats being assessed by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, apparently, on that day, none were more insidious or challenging to us, or more menacing, than several hundred people, mostly women, in New Bedford who were making backpacks for the U.S. Army.
At night, I had to do the hardest thing in the world, explain to a three-year-old and a five-year-old what was happening and why their mother wasn’t coming home. They looked at me with their eyes filled with tears. I felt the same way, so helpless and alone…Many kids are scared of the boogieman, but [my siblings] are afraid of ICE.
And the consequences for workers’ civil liberties were just as horrifying. In the report’s introduction, UFCW International President Joe Hansendescribes the Bush administration’s flagrant disregard for the rule of law. “Racial profiling. Due process ignored… the Constitution tossed aside.”
The Commission offers this report as a record of an administration utterly abdicating its responsibility to provide a workable immigration policy. But it’s also offered as an opening for a new dialogue on immigration with the Obama administration, with a president committed to the idea that our ideals and security need not be mutually exclusive.
And central to that discussion, that dialogue, is the idea that at its core immigration is about workers. We need a productive immigration discussion about all workers, native born and immigrant, and their rights, protections, and opportunities to achieve the American Dream.
"They're taking our jobs!" It's the most common refrain heard in the the narrow dialogue and screaming matches that pass for debate on immigration, on cable news shows and faux-populist rallies alike. It's the one supposedly irrefutable argument, the one that immigration opponents use to try to stoke the fears and anger of the under or unemployed--especially in this troubled economy.
It's not a new refrain. It's been heard throughout our history during periods of immigration of various groups, like the Chinese, to the United States. It's a dangerous phrase that implies a delicate balance between "us" and the "other," the immigrant, which "they" are tipping by coming into our country and taking all the jobs. It's a phrase that cuts off all debate and has even some reasonable, otherwise compassionate people nodding in agreement.
With the Obama administration and Congress expected to push ahead with immigration reform, it's important that lawmakers and the public shape policy changes based on fact rather than fears.
It has perhaps seemed logical to assume that the willingness of many foreigners - particularly those here illegally - to work for low pay takes jobs away from Americans. But it turns out that having a large number of recent immigrants in a location doesn't necessarily correlate with a lot of native-born workers being unemployed, based on an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
That analysis, done by the Immigration Policy Center, shows that "there is little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level."
The report shows, for example, that:
Recent immigrants make up 8.4 percent of the population in the Pacific region (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii), but just 2.8 percent of the population in the East North Central region (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin). Yet, the regions had similar unemployment rates of 10.8 percent in the Pacific region and 10 percent in the East North Central region as of March 2009.
Another example: In New Jersey, recent immigrants account for 7.3 percent of the population, but in Maine they are just 0.8 percent. Nonetheless, the states' March unemployment rates respectively were 8.3 and 8.l percent.
The report found the highest unemployment rates are in counties in manufacturing centers and rural areas, which generally draw fewer recent immigrants.
The tradition of blaming job loss on immigrants is one we ought to lose in a hurry. Unemployment is very real problem, but it's not the fault of immigrants. We need problem-solving, not scapegoating, to fix our economy and implement meaningful immigration reform in this country.
June 12th is World Day Against Child Labour. As hundreds of events take place around the globe, it is worth taking a moment to recognize that child labor is happening not only in countries far away, but right here in the U.S.
On May 12, 2008, an on-going investigation into child labor violations at the Agriprocessors processing plant in Postville, Iowa, was derailed by a conflicting raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Among those rounded up in the raid were numerous children, some as young as thirteen years old.
Mark Lauritsen, International Vice President of the UFCW, says Agriprocessors has gotten away with the labor violations for too long. He states: "There is not one other meatpacker operator in this country that has the same sustained long record of law violations as Agriprocessors, not one. They're acting like a renegade in an already tough industry. It's not good for the industry, it's not good for the workers who work in it."
Despite evidence of the use of child labor, Agriprocessors has yet to be held legally accountable for its actions.
While children across the country caught the bus for school and headed off for classes, the children at Agriprocessors went off to work in one of the most dangerous industries in the country.
Child labor anywhere is a disaster, but the discovery of child labor in an American packing plant is an outrage. To ignore the violations that happened there would not only be neglectful of our laws, but a disgrace to our core American values and what we stand for as a country.
The UFCW has never tolerated the use of child labor and never will. Together, we must expose the misdeeds of companies driven by corporate greed and help build stronger workplaces where respect for workers, and those children who will be the next generation of workers, is top priority. Learn More here.
After a 3-year struggle, Brooklyn slaughterhouse workers have won the right to organize. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled workers have the right to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
AgriProcessors argued its workers had no right to vote or belong to a union because of undetermined immigration status even though the National Labor Relations Board previously ruled that every employee -- regardless of immigration status -- has a vote in collective bargaining.
One of the nation's largest kosher meat producers, AgriProcessors refused to bargain after a majority of its distribution center employees voted to unionize in September 2005.
