UFCW Statement on Immigration - for AFL-CIO-Sponsored Forum
by UFCW International Secretary-Treasurer Joe Hansen

Background: The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is the nation's largest private sector labor union, with 1.4 million members in the retail food, meat packing, poultry, food processing and other industries. Meat packing and food processing employ one of the largest concentrations of new immigrant worker of any industry in America and were among the first industries to shift to a primarily Latino workforce, beginning in the late 1970's. The UFCW is reaching out and mobilizing new immigrant workers to stand up for a voice on the job and providing services such as language classes, legal assistance, social service references and advanced safety training on the job. Following is a statement delivered by UFCW International Secretary-Treasurer Joe Hansen at the AFL-CIO-sponsored forum on the federation's changing position on immigrant workers in the U.S.

On behalf of the 1.4 million members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), I want to thank the AFL-CIO for giving us the opportunity to address the critical issue of U.S. immigration policy.

The UFCW is one of the largest private sector unions in North America---and, one of the largest unions of new immigrant workers in the U.S. with more than 200,000 new immigrants as members.

We are the primary worker representative in industries that are major employers of immigrant workers----meatpacking, food processing and poultry.

While issues effecting immigrant workers have attracted attention lately, the UFCW has been struggling to organize, represent and improve wages and working conditions for immigrant workers for decades. Meatpacking and food processing were among the first to utilize immigrant labor. In fact, we have been fighting this battle for more than a hundred years.

We are an immigrant movement. A hundred years ago, Polish, Italian and Southern European immigrants poured into the packing plants of this city. Today, immigrants from Asia and Latin America work the processing lines of the packing industry across the U.S.

The solution to the problems of immigrant workers today is the same as a hundred years ago: organize, organize, organize.

The position of the UFCW is simple and direct: we don't care about green cards, we care about union cards. We care about union contracts that guarantee dignity at work and a decent standard of living at home---regardless of race, gender, nationality or immigration status. That, we believe, is the bedrock value of the U.S. labor movement.

Right now, the U.S. has immigration law on paper, but the U.S. has no national immigration policy. In reality, immigration policy has been privatized.

Private employers import, exploit and, in effect, deport immigrant workers at will with little or no regard for federal law or federal enforcement agencies.

Too often, it appears to workers that INS is a partner, intentionally or not, with employers in the exploitation of immigrant labor and the suppression of worker rights. INS seems to show up more often during an organizing campaign or a strike situation.

The fact is that immigration issues in the U.S. are part of a larger, global trend---the systematic and ruthless exploitation of labor.

Corporations export jobs in search of the most exploitable labor pool---and, they import workers to create a domestic pool of exploitable labor.

On trade issues, we demand labor standards to protect workers, regardless of what country they live in and work in, against exploitation at the hands of their employers.

The failure of trade policy to include strong, enforceable labor standards has created a vast international labor pool that lives and works without rights or hope for the future. It is a pool of workers that can recruited, imported, exploited and disposed of.

On immigration issues, we must demand standards to protect workers regardless of what country they came from or how they got here.

Because the issue is the same: the exploitation of labor.

How do we meet today's challenges?

First, immigration policy must face reality. Employers actively recruit and import undocumented workers for the sole purpose of exploitation. They advertise for workers outside U.S. borders. They utilize labor contractors. They use current workers to recruit more workers.

These employers effectively exempt themselves from U.S. workplace laws. We can have a law that says workers must have a safe workplace, but the law is useless if workers can take no action under the law without fear of deportation.

We must criminalize employer recruitment and importation of undocumented labor.

Second, we must break the exploitation incentive for employers. Employers should face greater scrutiny from OSHA and the wage and hour enforcement division of the Labor Department. INS must suspend any workplace enforcement action for those workplaces where there is action to enforce labor laws. INS must not be an employer weapon to silence workers.

Third, workers must have the right to organize. Unions are the best way----day-to-day----to stop the exploitation of labor. Joined together, workers can break the exploitation incentive. Finally, the UFCW does not support "open borders" without regard to labor standards, as we do not support so-called "free trade" without regard to labor standards.

We must have fair, consistent enforcement of immigration laws, and an orderly process of legal immigration.

We do not, however, support the massive deportation of current workers in the U.S. They are an integral part of the economy and their communities. They have earned a place at the table and we must have a legalization process.

We have seen thousands of immigrant workers killed, injured and maimed on the job. We have seen immigrant workers crammed into substandard housing. We have seen millions of immigrant workers underpaid and overworked---used up and then dumped----without rights or regard for their well-being.

It must stop. This is America---and that still means something to us in the labor movement. We must challenge our country to be the America that has been the hope of immigrants for more than two centuries.

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To read this statement in Spanish - click here