| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 5, 2001 |
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Worker Legalization Key to Ending Worker Exploitation "Immigrant workers who are regularly employed, pay taxes, and contribute to Social Security should have the opportunity to legalize their status in the U.S. As contributing members of our communities, who go to work every day, raise a family, and abide by U.S. laws, these workers have earned a place at the American table and deserve a legalization process, regardless of where they came from or how they got here," said United Food and Commercial Workers Union International President Doug Dority. Private employers import, exploit and, in effect, deport immigrant workers at will with little or no regard for federal law or federal enforcement agencies. Corporations actively recruit and import undocumented workers for the sole purpose of gaining a cheap and exploitable workforce. They advertise for workers outside U.S. borders. They utilize employment contractors, and they use current workers to recruit more workers. Thousands of immigrant workers have been killed, injured, and maimed on the job. They are crammed into substandard housing. Millions of these workers are underpaid and overworked, used up and then dumped, without rights or regard for their well-being. "Ninety percent of the workers in the Omaha, Neb., meatpacking plant where I worked are immigrants," said Antonio Hernandez, former meatpacking worker, addressing hundreds of union activists who rallied on the steps of Congress demanding immigration reform. "We work hard, pay our taxes, raise our families, and contribute to our communities. We deserve legal status." The Bush administration's guest worker proposal is no answer for millions of workers who are integral parts of the economy and their communities. Under the Bush plan, so-called guest workers would be stripped of common workplace rights, including the right to form a union, and, in effect, indentured to their employers. Only a legalization process, in which workers have an unquestioned right to form a union, will break the exploitation incentive for employers. A guest worker provision would only allow employers a constant stream of exploitable and disposable workers. The 1.4 million member UFCW is the largest private sector union in North America and the primary worker representative in industries that are major employers of immigrant workers, meatpacking, food processing, and poultry. The UFCW is one of the largest unions of new immigrant workers in the U.S. with more than 200,000 new immigrants as members. |
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