Document from July 1998 Convention

Labor actions are founded on membership attitudes and principles. To the end of shaping such attitudes and stating such principles, the following policy statements were adopted by the 1998 Biennial Convention of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.…

XIX — IMMIGRATION

The labor movement and this country were built by immigrants, including those from Africa who were kidnapped and forced into slavery. Public concern about immigration rises and falls with our economy, and our immigration laws reflect this. Our laws have also historically reflected public attitudes about race, with bans and discriminatory limits on legal immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America which have only recently been rectified.

In 1994, California unions campaigned vigorously against Proposition 187, which unfairly and falsely blamed immigrants for all the budgetary and economic woes that face the state. In 1998, our unions campaigned against Proposition 227, which sought to make it more difficult for immigrant children to learn English and receive a quality education.

Both initiatives were the products of the political ambitions of Republican politicians. Governor Pete Wilson boosted his reelection through inciting anti-immigrant hysteria in 1994. Software tycoon Ron Unz hopes to fashion a political career through simplistic solutions to the complicated problem of a diverse population speaking many languages. Other conservative legislators continue to fan the flames of this hysteria in the current election campaign.

Most provisions of Proposition 187, denying education to undocumented children and preventing their families from receiving medical care, were ruled unconstitutional. The Federation [California AFL-CIO] has joined in a legal challenge to the constitutionality of Proposition 227. Nevertheless, the anti-immigrant sentiment which these propositions embody continues to pose a major threat to the human and civil rights of all of California’s working people.

That sentiment was responsible for the inclusion of anti-immigrant provisions in federal welfare reform legislation, unfairly disqualifying almost a million immigrant families from needed social benefits. These anti-immigrant measures are a threat to the rights of all working people, and our Federation opposes them.

Thousands of immigrant workers, both with and without documents, have mounted large and effective campaigns to organize into unions in California in the last few years, including among others, janitors, hotel and restaurant workers, carpenters, farm workers, machinists, manufacturing and food processing workers, garment workers, and health care workers. These efforts have created new unions, and strengthened and revived many others. All labor in California has benefited as a result.

The Federation stands for the equality of all workers. Our unity is our strength. Immigration legislation which divides workers undermines that strength.

To protect that unity, the Federation resolved in 1994 that employer sanctions, because they cause discrimination against anyone who looks or sounds foreign, should be repealed. The rise in discrimination following the passage of Proposition 187 confirms this danger. Employer sanctions also provide a weapon employers have used repeatedly to fire and threaten immigrant workers who organize unions.

Immigration laws must not be used to make immigrant workers vulnerable and cheapen their labor, but must protect their rights as workers and human beings. All workers, regardless of immigration status, must have the right to form unions; file complaints against illegal and unfair treatment without fear of reprisal; receive unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and workers’ compensation benefits; and enjoy the same remedies under labor law as all other workers.

Workers can only use their legal rights to organize and enforce worker protection laws if they are not subject to reprisals because of their immigration status when they do so. Therefore, the memorandum of understanding must be rescinded between the U.S. Department of Labor and the Immigration and Naturalization Service in which DoL inspectors called to remedy violations of worker protection laws must investigate and refer for deportation workers whose immigration status is in question. During organizing drives, strikes, and other periods of union activity, the INS must not intervene to conduct raids, document checks, or other acts which make it impossible for workers to exercise their union rights.

Immigrants come here for jobs, not for free education or health care. They are driven from their homes in their countries of origin by hunger, poverty, unemployment, political repression, and the lack of economic opportunity. These conditions are often exacerbated by trade and economic policies which use them as lures for corporate investment.

We therefore call for an end to programs of austerity and structural adjustment, which create the pressure for immigration by impoverishing workers. There are over 100 million people in the world today who have left their countries of origin. Only social and economic justice on a global scale will create a world where immigration is not a means of survival for the world’s poor. Attacks on immigrants have led hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants to exercise their constitutional right to become naturalized citizens. All budgetary and bureaucratic bottlenecks to realization of their American dream must be eliminated. Organized labor strongly supports the right to naturalize. The separation of the right to a job and the right to vote only promises to promote division among working people, create a two-tiered society, and reduce working conditions for all.

As the percentage of California’s population which was born outside the U.S. rises, the importance of the voting power of new citizens has grown. New citizen voters have already provided the margin of defeat for some of the state’s most anti-labor politicians, particularly Rep. Bob Dornan in Orange County. The votes of immigrants were a key factor in the defeat of Proposition 226, which would have irreparably silenced labor’s political voice.

California demographics are undergoing a fundamental change. People of color will be a majority of the state’s population within a decade. A political alliance between California’s labor movement and its immigrant and minority communities can provide the base for ending the era of right-wing initiatives and the politicians who have sought to profit by them. That alliance can make a basic progressive change in our state’s political direction, benefiting all of our working population. In the political work of California’s unions, we need to campaign jointly on the issues that will bring together our unions and communities.