UFCW Immigration Policy - June 2001
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.
AFL-CIO Immigration Forum, Los Angeles, California June 10, 2000
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 UFCW's Position Challenges
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