Posted on 03/02/2006 1:24:11 PM PST by Rick_Michael
"AFL-CIO leaders on Tuesday said they would reject guest worker proposals now in Congress, saying that all foreign workers who come to the United States to fill labor shortages should come as permanent residents. In a comprehensive policy on an immigration issue that has divided labor as well as Republican lawmakers, leaders of the 54-union federation ditched the idea that a temporary guest worker program could be made acceptable," Reuters reports. "The AFL-CIO, the larger of two U.S. labor federations, continues to support the legalization of more than 11 million illegal foreign workers in the country as it has since taking that landmark position in 2000. Its new policy, however, would oppose existing U.S. guest worker programs, such as H1B visas for foreign professional workers or H2B visas for seasonal unskilled workers, as well as Senate proposals to expand those programs.the notion of separate but equal working conditions for workers who are not accorded permanent residency status, or 'green cards,' and given the option of becoming citizens."
Is it just me or does it seem like banks, unions, and politicians are all supporting illegals more than the average American? Doesn't leave much representation for either party. Why do I feel that this is all coming to a head?
The AFL-CIO is a mouthpiece for the democrats (meaning socialists). And people continue to say there is no difference between the parties. Uhhg.
Once upon a time the unions would have been on the front line against this. I guess the bosses know who their future members are. Illegal aliens and graduate students are the future for the unions . . . the labor movement sure is in a weird place these days.
I don't suppose they've asked the membership how they feel about this.
You have to look at it from a dues-paying perspective: who's gonna join the unions and pay their dues--the temporary (guest) worker or the permanent (amnesty) worker?
Do you remember the Freedom Ride a few years back? When I read that the head of the AFL-CIO was a speaker, I was intrigued. Apparently, the unions are embracing workers regardless of status. How things have changed.
The AFL-CIO is not doing its membership any favors by supporting an amnesty for these criminals that have entered or country without permission. They are actually working toward their unions destruction by supporting the absurdly low wages these illegals are pushing on the labor market.Yet they wonder why workers are leaving unions in droves.
Money and votes. Banks can make higher interest loans, unions get more bodies and politicians hope illegals will become voters.
They just want to legalize a substantial number of their dues paying members!!!
That should be phrased... "hope MORE illegals will become voters!
AFL-CIO Executive Council Immigration Committee has put forth a more humane and democratic alternative. We propose that if employers can demonstrate a real need for outside workers, these workers should be allowed into our country with the SAME RIGHTS AND LABOR PROTECTIONS as any U.S. citizen. When there is a real need for foreign workers, we should embrace these workers NOT as “guests” but as FULL members of society—as PERMANENT RESIDENTS with full rights and full mobility that greedy employers may NOT exploit.
What immigrant workers need is a real path to legalization and a method for addressing America’s future needs for outside labor in a way that guarantees immigrant workers—and thus ALL workers—full rights, and a real voice on the job. As a nation that prides itself on fair treatment and equality, we simply cannot settle for anything less.
******
Historic partnership with the National Education Association strengthens the union movement and benefits working families
The new AFL-CIO partnership with the National Education Association (NEA) and this week’s affiliation of the United Transportation Union (UTU) and Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) with the AFL-CIO are just the latest in a growing union-movement-wide momentum for renewed solidarity.
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At the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in San Diego, a Feb. 28 afternoon press briefing highlighted ramped-up organizing efforts among AFL-CIO unions ranging from high-tech workers at Cingular Wireless to Iron Workers at J.D. Steel.
“We’re taking on major employers, targeting entire regions and organizing workers in sectors not traditionally unionized, like child care, as never before,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
President Sweeney pointed out that nearly 60 percent of workers who don’t already have a union say they would join one tomorrow if given the chance.
http://blog.aflcio.org/?tag=AFL-CIO%20Executive%20Council
Interesting information in your post.
What concerns me is the emphasis on phrases such as: full rights, full members of society. My first thought is voting rights.
The AFL-CIO leadership is intertwined, possibly financially, with the pro-Illegal "ethnic" NGOs sponsored by the cheap labor industries. They were entwined with the National Immigration Forum a while back, I thought there members raised a ruckus and they dropped out of it. Looks like they've come back full-blast.
"Labor shortages" LOL.
illegals are easier to coerce into being in the union (IE: threat of deportation in addition to the tried-and-true Teamsters arse kicking)
Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President
http://www.nwhp.org/tlp/biographies/chavez-thompson/images/chavez-thompson.jpg
Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected executive vice president of the AFL-CIO at the federation’s 1995 convention and was re-elected to a new four-year term in 2005. She is the first person to hold the post of AFL-CIO executive vice president, and she is the first person of color to be elected to one of the federation’s three highest offices.
A native of Lubbock, Texas, Chavez-Thompson is a second-generation American of Mexican descent. She brings to her work 35 years of experience in the labor movement, beginning in 1967 with her first work for the Laborers’ local union in Lubbock. She went on to serve in a variety of posts with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in San Antonio, Texas, and became an international vice president in 1988, a post she held until 1996. She also served from 1986 to 1996 as a national vice president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, AFL-CIO. In 1993, Chavez-Thompson was elected and served a two-year term as one of 31 vice presidents on the Executive Council of the national AFL-CIO.
As executive vice president of the federation, Chavez-Thompson represents the labor movement as a member of the board for several national organizations, including the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. She also serves as a member of the Board of Governors for the United Way of America, and as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. In 2001, she was elected president of ORIT, the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers, which is the Western Hemispheric arm of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
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A second-generation American of Mexican descent, Chavez-Thompson has 32 years of experience in the labor movement. She rose from the organizing ranks of her union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), to become the first person of color elected to an executive office of the AF L-CIO. She is the highest ranking woman in the labor movement.
http://www.americanpatrol.com/04-FEATURES/040726-KERRY-VILLY-DEMS/AFLCIOCHAVEZMARCHA.gif
Union activists, immigrants rally for workers' rights
June 10, 2000 -- "We are on the side of working people everywhere," Linda Chavez-Thompson, an AFL-CIO executive vice president, told the crowd. "We don't care whether their families came here on the Mayflower or slave ships 400 years ago, ..., or last year across the Mexican border."
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON
AFL/CIO and Reconquista
AFL-CIO Exec. Vice Pres. Linda Chavez-Thompson urged participants to fight the "right-wing rascals" who want to keep working women silent.
Union women "shake their cheese" – boxes of low-cost macaroni and cheese symbolizing the need for higher wages and pay equity.
******
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON: My grandparents came from Mexico and to the United States when it was very easy; all you had to do was pay five dollars and you were an American citizen.
Now, unfortunately, we have an immigration law that prevents the immigrants from coming as easily as they used to, but at the same time they still sneak in, they still come in, because the American economy provides jobs, and so we call them undocumented immigrants, and there's about 9 million of them in the United States.
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON: About 10 per cent of the workforce, or thereabouts, about that many that area here, and they're doing to dirtiest, the heaviest, the ugliest jobs; most of these are jobs that Americans don't want, they don't apply for them.
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON: They are needed.
Now, there are some people who were very anti-immigration, and of course they don't want them here, but the employers want them here.
We, in fact, have worked with the Chamber of Commerce, which is the business sector in America, to try to find a way to document these workers, because they need them. These are workers that are needed in the industry, especially in the south where there's a lot of hog killing, pokery plants, who run through their workers quite fast, and the turnover there is anywhere from 30 to 35 to 40 per cent, so they need an influx of new workers and these are jobs that Americans don't want, because they're very heavy, they're dirty, and they don't pay the highest wages.
So these are jobs that Americans think they shouldn't go to work any place for less than 10 dollars an hour, and these are jobs that pay either minimum wage, and in some cases where the rights of these undocumented immigrants were violated, they pay much less than minimum wage, as recorded by Federal Law.
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON: Yes. They have become legitimate members of society.
In many places in the south, southern cities that used to be the elite of the south now harbour many of these undocumented immigrants, where the city now looks like a little Mexico, or a little Salvadorian village, or an Ecuadorian village, depending on the race of workers that habituate that city, and some in the south don't want them, but they need them.
How will that Tysons Poultry Plant exist for the tax face of that city if they don't have those workers, so it's a, sometimes it's an uneasy type of relationship.
Do we need them? Do we want them? Or we don't want them, but we need them.
Linda Chavez-Thompson, Vice-President of the US Union Movement, the AFLCIO.
******
Even the AFL-CIO, which once rallied against illegal immigrants, has been calling for reforms that would help illegal immigrants. The union sees immigrants as viable new members, said Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson.
"Throughout our country's history, immigrants have played an important role in building democratic institutions and vibrant new communities," said Chavez-Thompson.
http://tinyurl.com/j5tz9
AFL-CIO CALLS FOR FULL AMNESTY AND LEGALIZATION OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
The executive council of the AFL-CIO, the largest union in the US, with 13 million members, on Wednesday called upon the government to grant an amnesty to the estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US. The union also asked that employers be held accountable for exploiting them, and called for the repeal of employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers.
One of the primary reasons for this major shift in position was the belief that employers used the threat of employer sanctions to retaliate against undocumented workers who participated in union activities. According to Linda Chavez-Thompson the Executive Vice-President of the AFL-CIO, “Employers often knowingly hire workers who are undocumented, and then when workers seek to improve working conditions employers use the law to fire or intimidate workers. This both subverts the intent of the law and lowers working and living standards for all workers-immigrant and non-immigrant-in many industries.” She added that “The law should criminalize employer behavior, not punish workers.”
Part of the resolution also calls for the development of educational and training programs to educate all workers on immigration issues. It also calls for an increased national dialogue on immigration. To further this dialogue, the AFL-CIO will sponsor a series of meetings of foreign workers, community leaders, and union activists. The first of these is scheduled for April 1 in New York City.
Reaction to the AFL-CIO decision has been mixed. Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration advocacy group says the decision will “be a shot heard round Washington.” He thinks the new position might “have the makings of a business-labor compact that could draw new immigration policies for the next decade.”
The decision was also supported by the US Chamber of Commerce, which represents over 3000 businesses in the US. The Chamber believes that the amnesty will help alleviate worries about workers shortages, which are being felt in almost every industry in the country, from high-tech computers to hotels and restaurants.
Of course, there are groups that oppose the decision. Dan Stein, the executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates restricted immigration, said the call for amnesty would only encourage continued illegal immigration. According to Stein, “These pronouncements send signals around the world that this country should continue to be flooded with illegal workers.”
Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), chairman of House immigration subcommittee and well known for his often anti-immigration positions, called the AFL-CIO decision “a betrayal of American workers.” He accused the union of making the move to stop declining union enrollment.
Along with an eventual amnesty, the AFL-CIO resolution calls for an immediate amnesty for Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and Haitians who fled their countries in the 1980s and early 1990s. Other beneficiaries of the immediate amnesty would be Liberians in the US who fled the recent civil war in their home country, and as many as 350,000 long-term US residents who were denied amnesty in 1986, according to many groups because of INS mistakes.
Despite this fundamental change in one aspect of its immigration related policy, the AFL-CIO has no plan to change its stance in another, and remains opposed to any increase in the number of temporary work visas.
http://tinyurl.com/heet6
Can't say that I'm surprised! LOL
Both are here permanently. Who is ever going to make "temporary" aliens leave. George Bush? LOL!
- his fellow immigration leftists John McCain, H. Clinton, Giulliani, etc? LOL again!
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