Posted on 02/19/2008 9:18:04 AM PST by XR7
Striding onto a Seattle-area work site with a white hard hat, Jimmy Matta converses in Spanish with Latino laborers who carry paintbrushes, power drills or spackling tools.
How much are you getting paid?
How many hours are you working?
Matta gives them his business card, promises his help and drives off to the next site.
A decade of organizing Latino construction workers is paying off for Matta, 32, who recently became the first Latino organizing director of the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.
Born in Idaho to illegal migrant farmworkers, Matta spent much of his early childhood in the Central Washington cities of Quincy, Wenatchee and Ephrata and began working summers in the fields at age 10.
He is now among the union's senior leadership, responsible for organizing efforts in Western Washington, which accounts for nearly half of the union's 23,500 members in five states.
His promotion "is a big step forward for the carpenters and for the Latino population," said Chris Elwell, executive secretary of the Seattle-King County Building and Construction Trades Council.
At the same time, Matta and the carpenters union have been criticized for aggressively recruiting and going to the defense of nonunion Latino workers, many of them undocumented.
Sunday in Everett, Matta distributed checks to Latino drywall tapers as part of a class-action lawsuit over wages and overtime he helped bring about against a large Snohomish County drywall contractor.
Critics also have complained that the carpenters union goes beyond recruiting Latino carpentry workers to also solicit Latinos working as drywall tapers, painters and others who typically would be organized by other trade unions.
The carpenters union says its only aim is to help those whose illegal status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and also those whom other unions have neglected...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
"Si se puede!"
Why bother fighting this anymore?
The takeover is complete.
Hey, if they can’t vote, at least their union dues will go to the dems........
This really plays to the Democrats. They were conflicted between their illegal hispanic voters and their union members. But with 2/3 of the union members now Hispanic, no es problema, hombre.
So much for cheap labor. Who would have guessed that illegals/poor mexicans would be seduced by democrats message of ‘social justice’ instead of capitialism?? Remember Bush sending Tony Snow on Rush’s show to claim these are future Republicans? Well maybe so with Senior mCCain, Visva McCain, of course we have to give up a few issues, like tax cuts, ...
You know, I'd bet that even when McAmnesty gets his program passed they will still vote Dem.
Somebody needs to explain to this union thug and those illegal workers that their only usefulness lies in the fact that they can be paid cheap wages with no benefits.
When they start demanding equal pay, there will be no reason for them to be hired. Their buddies at the Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal, the meat packing plants, the landscapers, and the construction businesses will tell them to get lost.
Once they get uppity, maybe even McCain will tell them to get lost. And Tony Snow won’t be lecturing us about whether we would rather pay $30,000 or $50,000 for that remodeling job. It will cost $60,000, with the differnce going to union dues which will NOT be spent on Republican candidates.
What ye sow, ye shall reap.
Arrest the Union leaders and seize their Union assets.
Sorry, but you are wrong.
Illegals ARE being hired - especially on the really big construction jobs that get municipal, state, and federal dollars/tax subsidies. In fact, the Latinos (illegal and legal) outnumber other ethnicities. And, they are getting union/prevailing wages.
Another reason... I hate unions!
We have no presidential candidate amongst the big three who will take care of this problem. So we'll have another 8 years of this probably doubling the number of illegals.
Some states are stepping up. That may be the way to go.
can anyone else shed some optimism on ths problem?
Unions have been organizing (with varying degrees of success) illegal laborers in my neck of the woods for some time now. They had an active outreach to the illegal Portuguese and Irish back in the 1970s and 1980s, so this doesn’t come as a surprise.
While they may be incidents where illegals are being hired, you can not back up the claim that illegals are being hired universally with full pay and benefits.
And if they are "on the really big construction jobs that get municipal, state, and federal dollars/tax subsidies", they in violation of a lot of laws besides immigration that I doubt many firms would want to risk violating.
If you can prove this, send me the names of these companies and I will report them. I don't think you can or will.
Go ahead. . .get those illegals to join your union. No employer is going to risk employing illegals if they have to pay them the same as they pay American citizens.
Of course. Mark Levin put it exactly, given their education, dependence on government programs like food stamps, who will they follow? those who promise free college and health care and tax increases on rich, or capital gains tax cuts? McCain and Bush’s plan for capturing this group of voters is similar to original plan for Iraq’s occupation 2003 , if there is a plan , we cant see it
“So much for cheap labor.”
It’s a bluff. Sometimes these union apparatchiks make an attempt at seeming as if the illegals aren’t depressing wages. This is done to keep the rank and file confused.
The union ruling class makes more money by increasing membership, not raising memberships’ wages.
DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winer!
If employers are forced to pay illegals the prevailing wage, then the incentive to hire illegals evaporates. Toss in stepped-up enforcement, and it's definitely not worth the hassle.
Love or hate unions in general, we should be cheering for this effort -- it would be a potent disincentive for businesses to hire illegals, whether that's what the union intended or not.
You are correct, the fight is over. All 3 candidates still left in this race are pro illegals.
We are going to get amnesty, open borders, rampant disease, socialism, and a declining USA culture.
Just a short time away now.
There is no "plan" (I don't need no steenking plan).
Whomever comes up with these hair brain anti American, anti Constitutional ideas over at the RNC is just some wonk that 'thinks' the Rs will get some votes out of it.
They won't of course, but it sure as hell will destroy the country!
I only know of what I have been told. I work with a lot of construction workers here in Los Angeles and almost all are Hispanic. In Los Angeles you are required to pass a Contractors State test before becoming a contractor. It is not an easy test unless you have a photographic memory. Even if you understand what you are reading on plans it is often a debate as to the meaning of a note. With earthquake, wind, soil conditions and environmental concerns, building conditions are getting harder to discern.
The people I work with tell me that in Los Angeles you have to belong to the Union. You no longer need to be a licensed contractor, as an alternative you can also now show you are in the union. This is in Los Angeless mind acceptable. Never mind the fact that they dont check for legal citizenship or if you speak English or you have an education above 3rd grade.
Add to this that very few projects have Union members. No one can afford Union wages. The people that insist on Union workers are the government. Our Schools, our highways, Libraries, everything government related is Union and they dont check for legal status. This is the reason that our military bases have been hiring illegal aliens to do their work. It can be argued that by hiring Union Members you are hiring the worst of the worst.
I heard some union boss boast that it is not his responsibility to check the legal status of workers. Hey, but let them build a roof over your childs school.
Hear hear!
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