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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Globalization : Labor |
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Labor Federation Forms a Pact With Day Workers |
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by Steven Greenhouse
(No verified email address) |
09 Aug 2006
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“The fact is that worker centers are one of the most vibrant parts of the labor movement today, even though they have largely not had a connection to ‘organized labor,’ ” the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president, John J. Sweeney, said at a news conference in Chicago, where the federation’s executive council was meeting.
Under the partnership, worker centers will be able to have nonvoting representatives on the boards of central labor councils in cities throughout the nation. The day laborers will not pay union dues or become union members. |
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the nation’s largest organization of day laborers signed a partnership agreement yesterday intended to help the languishing labor movement tap into the potent energy of the immigrant rights movement.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. said its partnership with the group, the National Day Labor Organizing Network, would also seek to improve wages and conditions for tens of thousands of laborers and other immigrant workers.
With the agreement, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is embracing workers who many union members have accused of driving down wages. The partnership connects the labor federation to a network that largely represents illegal immigrant workers who often have run-ins with the police as they stand on street corners soliciting jobs.
The day laborers’ network and the immigrant groups it works with were pivotal in setting up the large demonstrations this spring that backed immigrant rights.
“I think the A.F.L.-C.I.O. needs this energy, this new energy,” said Pablo Alvarado, director of the network, a loose association of day laborers and worker centers across the country.
More than 140 of the worker centers exist, and promote the rights of immigrant workers, teach them English, inform them about their rights and help them file claims for unpaid wages.
“The fact is that worker centers are one of the most vibrant parts of the labor movement today, even though they have largely not had a connection to ‘organized labor,’ ” the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president, John J. Sweeney, said at a news conference in Chicago, where the federation’s executive council was meeting.
Under the partnership, worker centers will be able to have nonvoting representatives on the boards of central labor councils in cities throughout the nation. The day laborers will not pay union dues or become union members.
“We don’t bring money, we’re not bringing members,” Mr. Alvarado said. “But we’re bringing something that’s extremely important: very humble, very vulnerable workers who say, ‘I need to get paid more for what I do.’ ”
The federation will push for stronger safety and wage enforcement and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Several labor experts called the partnership a major step for labor.
“Symbolically it’s very, very important,” said Janice Fine, an assistant professor of labor relations at Rutgers University and the author of a book about worker centers. “It’s a clear signal from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. that it’s acknowledging the immigrant workers movement that has grown up largely alongside organized labor.
Last January, professors at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Illinois at Chicago released the first nationwide study on day laborers, finding that 117,600 gather at more than 500 hiring sites on a typical day.
The survey found that nearly half of day laborers reported that employers had cheated them out of wages and 18 percent reported incidents of violence by employers.
“This exploitation is wrong — it’s immoral,” Mr. Sweeney of the labor federation said. “It hurts us all because when standards are dragged down for some workers, they are dragged down for all workers.”
Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter restrictions on immigration, said it was surprising that the A.F.L.-C.I.O. was embracing day laborers when many American workers oppose the influx of immigrants, convinced that they take away jobs and push down wages.
“The union leadership wants one thing, and union members want another,” Mr. Camarota said. “This highlights why it’s difficult for the main labor movement — it’s completely out of touch with the interests of American workers.”
Mr. Alvarado and the Laborers International Union of North America, a construction workers union, are scheduled to announce a partnership today that will focus on improving conditions for thousands of immigrant workers doing housing construction in Riverside, San Bernardino and Sacramento, Calif., as well as in that state’s Central Valley.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com
More:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/09/afl-cio-partners-with-national-day-laborer-organizing-network/ |
See also:
http://www.aflcio.org/
http://www.ndlon.org/index2.htm
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