In the last decade immigrant workers have provided the backbone of strike after strike, spearheading some of the hardest-fought labor struggles since the farmworkers' battles of the late 1960s. Workplaces have become pressure cookers, provoking strikes among drywallers, framers, grape pickers, janitors, garment workers, electronics assemblers, foundry and metal workers, and others. These conflicts emerge as the growing dissatisfaction of immigrant workers meets an increasingly hard line taken by employers. They also emerge at a time when immigrants are denied rights and social welfare due to anti-immigrant legislation and hysteria, allowing industries to benefit as immigrant labor becomes cheaper.

One of the most important of the immigrant worker actions was the 1992-93 yearlong strike by California drywallers, who put up interior walls in new homes. These mostly-Mexican immigrants stopped all home construction from the Mexican border north to Santa Barbara. Running their movement democratically, from the bottom up, they defied the police and the Border Patrol, blockading freeways when their car caravans were rousted as they traveled to construction sites. In 1992, they finally forced building contractors to sign the first union contracts won by a grassroots organizing effort in the building trades anywhere in the country since the 1930s.

All workers organizing unions to win better wages have to consider the possibility of being fired for their activism, but immigrant workers face a number of specific obstacles. Undocumented workers face employer sanctions, which make finding another job much harder and riskier. Undocumented workers are also disqualified from unemployment benefits and food stamps, so a fired worker will be forced to take whatever job is available, at whatever wage.

The same problem confronts undocumented workers who consider filing complaints about unpaid or unfair wages, violations of health and safety laws, or sexual harassment. In fact, inspectors from the Department of Labor are required to report the undocumented, in essence protecting sweatshop employers.

As a consequence, immigrants' wages are dropping. According to UCLA professor Goetz Wolff, the average hourly wage in women's apparel in Los Angeles fell from $6.37 to $5.62 between 1988 and 1993. Some 120,000 workers, mostly immigrants, toil in LA's garment sweatshops. By contrast, the average wage in aircraft production, employing a mostly-unionized and native- born workforce, is over $20/hour, and rising slightly despite layoffs and recession.

Forging New Directions in Organized Labor

Many unions don't see changing demographics in the workforce as a cultural threat, but as a source of new traditions and heightened militancy. The immigrant-based upsurge helps ground unions in local communities, and is making them more democratic. According to veteran union organizer Peter Olney, immigrant workers "force unions to discard tired old tactics, and re-look at the whole question of what organizing means."

In unions seeking to build their strength through an alliance with this movement, organizers have to acquire a basic understanding of immigration law. Unions and community allies often distribute cards advising workers of their rights if stopped by the INS. In union meetings, workers ask questions about legal status, not only to get information, but also to see if the union is really committed to defending the undocumented.

Joel Ochoa, another veteran organizer, says that "the immigrant community is looking for ties with labor. People are coming here from Mexico and all over Latin America, with a tradition. . .that gives them a rich repertoire of tactics for fighting the companies."

Experiences in organizing undocumented immigrants first convinced the two garment worker unions (since merged into the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) to call for the repeal of employer sanctions in the late 1980s. They were followed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose past president, John Sweeney, is now president of the AFL-CIO.

Under its old leadership, the AFL-CIO supported employer sanctions during the debate over the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. But the AFL-CIO is moving towards defending the undocumented against rising anti-immigrant hysteria. California labor was a strong backer of the campaign against Proposition 187; janitors' and garment workers' union halls became anti-187 campaign offices. Unions were among the main organizers of the huge 150,000-strong march of immigrant workers in Los Angeles in the weeks before the measure passed.

In the short term, the AFL-CIO has started to devote serious resources to organizing drives among immigrant workers, although it has not actively opposed employer sanctions as a political policy. While Sweeney's new administration stated its intention of convening a committee of the federation's executive council to develop new immigration policy, that committee has yet to meet. During the 1996 debate over immigration reform in Congress, the federation urged "effective control of illegal immigration," including an additional 700 Border Patrol agents. It objected to most of the bill's provisions, however, including the national ID card, unrestricted immigration raids in the fields, asylum restrictions, and the disqualification of legal immigrants from public benefits.

The position of the AFL-CIO seems caught in the transition from the policies of its old leaders to those which might be expected from its new ones.

A Global Economic Approach

Ultimately, anti-immigrant hysteria and the repressive legislation it catalyzes cannot be fought in isolation from overall U.S. economic and social policies, both international and domestic. Rather than supporting increased border enforcement, immigrant advocates, including labor, must call for an end to U.S. government support for structural adjustment and austerity policies worldwide, especially in immigrant-sending countries. We cannot fight the scapegoating of undocumented immigrants for the problems of job flight and insecurity without calling for limitations on the ability of transnational corporations to move capital and production at will. Anti-immigrant domestic policies and free-trade policies abroad are interconnected and mutually supportive.

The fight for immigrant rights has to be part of a fight to defend and expand social services, for a full employment economy, for a shorter workweek, a higher minimum wage, and for increased labor rights. The defense of the rights of immigrants is, in fact, part of a broader social struggle over the protection of the rights of all working people and people of color.

David Bacon is a journalist and photographer who has written extensively about the labor movement. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights.