UE Convention Resolutions
Stand Up for the Rights
Of Immigrant Workers
UE's vision of solidarity is enshrined in the preamble to our constitution. Today that vision is tested as employers seek to exploit divisions between immigrant and native-born workers in order to drive down wages and strip away the hard-won rights of workers. Throughout our history, UE has always recognized that dividing workers only benefits employers.
For hundreds of years, immigrants have come to the U.S. seeking a better life for themselves and their families. They have been driven from their native countries by hunger, political repression and a lack of decent jobs. Today, these conditions are primarily the result of U.S. military and trade policies. The same trade deals that have cost U.S. workers millions of jobs have wreaked havoc upon the economies of developing countries. In Mexico, 1.3 million corn farmers were bankrupted due to NAFTA and driven from their land after U.S. agribusiness dumped large quantities of subsidized corn into the Mexican market. Starvation and unemployment drive the world’s workers and poor to leave their home countries. There is no solution to massive immigration, just as there is no solution to the exodus of jobs, as long as foreign and trade policies guarantee workers in other countries are unable to organize to win substantially improved wages and benefits.
Recessions generate insecurity about employment. This fuels an ongoing attempt by anti-labor politicians, hateful vigilante groups and right-wing media figures to blame economic woes on immigrants, diverting the attention of native-born workers. Studies show that immigrants contribute far more to U.S. society than they receive. Undocumented immigrants pay the same taxes as the rest of us, however, they do not receive Social Security benefits, and are often denied equal access to public education, college scholarships, driver's licenses, healthcare, food stamps, and other benefits.
The ability of government and employers to deny immigrant workers decent wages and conditions undermines the wages and conditions of all. Employers benefit by exploiting a category of workers without meaningful labor rights, chipping away at hard-earned wages and working conditions, and preventing future gains.
The Supreme Court's Hoffman Plastic Compounds ruling in March 2002 decreed that immigrant workers fired for organizing a union are not entitled to back pay or reinstatement. The Court effectively decided that immigrant workers have "no rights that bosses need respect." Employers now routinely use the Hoffman ruling to fire union activists.
Employers use Social Security Administration no-match notices and the E-Verify program to terrorize immigrant workers and squash their labor rights. Both programs are based on the Social Security Administration database which, by that agency's own admission, contains over 17 million errors. Many UE locals face attempts by employers to use no-match letters to union bust. Worse, many lawmakers now propose using these flawed methods to enforce immigration law. Doing so would harm both immigrant and native-born workers.
U.S. immigration enforcement is discriminatory and racist. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents use heavy-handed raids to terrorize communities and strike fear in workplaces throughout the country. Families are ripped apart in the process. Children are left in school while parents are jailed and then deported. A recent study by the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law showed that in 86 percent of ICE cases in Long Island, New York, ICE agents illegally entered people’s homes. In addition they found that agents used excessive force, threatened unarmed people with weapons and arrested many legal residents and U.S. citizens.
Since the inception of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws, immigrant communities have been driven further into the shadows. Discouraged from seeking help from police when they are victims of or witnesses to crime, our communities are less safe. Local law enforcement is overwhelmed and unprepared to handle immigration detention, children left without parents and language barriers. In the case of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, local law enforcement made it their mission to racially profile Latinos, intimidate, harass and humiliate immigrants while neglecting law enforcement duties and running up a $1.3 million deficit. 287(g) should end.
Proposals to militarize the southern U.S. border do not address the root cause of immigration; but only deepen the humanitarian crisis. These proposals, if enacted, would function only to divert needed government funds from our schools and infrastructure toward White House cronies in the defense industry in the form of no-bid boondoggle contracts.
Despite these obstacles, immigrant workers are fighting back. Members of UE Local 1110 inspired workers all over the country by their occupation of Republic Windows & Doors. The largely immigrant group of workers showed it is possible to fight against giant banks and win. And in 2008 the majority immigrant workforces at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service Centers (USCIS) in California and Vermont organized in force to form UE Locals 1008 and 208.
Our immigration system is broken. We need comprehensive immigration reform, including legislation that ensures legalization of immigrant workers, unification of immigrant families, access to education for immigrant children, and the overturn of the Hoffman Plastics decision. Now after many years, the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform is supported by the President and Congress. Labor unions have taken the lead by helping to draft a new framework for comprehensive immigration reform that ensures legalization, family unification and workers rights. It emphasizes rational operational control of the border and an independent commission to assess and manage future immigration.
Immigrants built this country and have played a central role in our union since its inception. All workers, regardless of immigration status, must have the right to form unions, to file complaints against unfair treatment without fear of reprisal, to receive unemployment, disability and workers' compensation benefits, to have access for themselves and their families to affordable housing, healthcare, education, and transportation, and to enjoy what few protections and remedies the law provides.
Successful fights for the rights of immigrant workers on the job and in society are possible. UE must work with other unions, religious and community groups to fight collectively for legalization and against anti-immigrant laws and sentiment.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 71st UE CONVENTION:
- Calls on the Obama administration to impose an immediate moratorium on all ICE raids, arrests, deportations, harassment, seizures, the 287(g) and E-Verify programs and other abuses of undocumented workers;
- Demands that Congress enact comprehensive immigration reform legislation that:
- Includes a legalization program, allowing all immigrants currently living in the U.S. to remain here permanently and without penalty;
- Protects worker' rights for both current and future immigrants, including overturning the Hoffman Plastics decision;
- Prioritizes family unification;
- Protects our civil liberties;
- Liberalizes political asylum procedures;
- Rejects guest worker programs;
- Repeals the REAL ID Act;
- Rejects "English-only" measures as a divisive tool.
- Supports the principles outlined in the "Unified Immigration Reform Framework" outlined by the AFL-CIO and Change To Win labor federations;
- Supports legislation such as the DREAM Act that provides immigrant students with access to higher education opportunities so that they can make a maximum contribution to society;
- Encourages locals to work with local immigrant rights coalitions, unions, churches and community groups to assist undocumented workers and repeal employer sanctions, streamline citizenship procedures, ensure passage of a general legalization program and win fair treatment for all immigrants;
- Calls on locals with immigrant members to educate employers on the rights of immigrant workers and the employers' right to resist ICE harassment and intimidation and on the perils of ICE’s voluntary enforcement initiatives;
- Denounces anti-immigrant laws and initiatives nationwide, including any that would deny housing or public services to immigrants and those that would allow local police to enforce federal immigration laws;
- Denounces anti-immigrant, vigilante hate groups;
- Encourages locals to assist their immigrant members in attaining documented status and citizenship if they so desire;
- Demands that state motor vehicle agencies change policies and programs that make it impossible for immigrants to legally own and operate vehicles;
- Urges locals to negotiate contract language that:
- Protects the jobs and contract rights of all members, regardless of immigration status;
- Allows undocumented workers to update their immigration status without loss of rights;
- Prevents the employer from taking adverse action against an employee in the event of the receipt of a Social Security "no-match" letter;
- Prevents the employer from participating in voluntary ICE enforcement programs;
- Obligates the employer to refuse entry to ICE agents who do not possess a valid warrant and notify the union if contacted by ICE;
- Requires the company to supply an independent translator when communicating on any important matter with a worker not fluent in English;
- Makes available copies of the contract in each language spoken by workers in the bargaining unit, as decided by the local and consistent with civil rights law;
- Calls upon the union at all levels to continue to develop an analysis of the real causes of worker migration to the U.S. and elsewhere, and to provide education and materials for members so we can better understand this issue and effectively build unity.