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May 20, 2008
Largest US Workplace
Immigration Raid
Reeks of
Union-Busting
The Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) made yet another zealous raid
on a meat processing plant last week, the largest such raid in
US history. Nearly 400 workers from the Agriprocessors
plant in Postville, Iowa are still being held, leaving many
people scratching their heads as to why this happened
seemingly out of the blue.
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| Families speak out at UFCW's third national
ICE raids hearing in Des Moines, Iowa on April 29. Photo
credit: UFCW website. |
ILCA member Workday
Minnesota (www.workdayminnesota.org) has uncovered a clue: they reported
Monday that there was an
active union drive underway at the plant when the ICE raid
occurred. Do corporations now have federal agents
carrying out their bullying divide-and-conquer tactics?
Read the story here.
You can read more at the UFCW
website about the ongoing
problems these raids are causing for workers and their
families, as well as the hearings UFCW is holding around the
country to expose the injustice of these
raids.
Day Seven: Exploited
Indian Workers Stage
Hunger Strike To Expose
"Guest Worker" Scam
ILCA encourages union
journalists and editors to get this story out to the
members. The "guest worker" program, which Bush and some
in Congress seek to expand, gives employers free rein to abuse
vulnerable immigrant workers and lock union members out of
decent jobs. ILCA members Union
City and PAI have both covered the struggle of these
workers from India who are putting their lives on the line to
expose the abuses of this program.
You can watch a video
report on this topic by Garland McLaurin of the ANP News
Project here.
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| Indian workers begin their march outside the
AFL-CIO in Washington, DC. The US labor movement
has thrown its support behind the workers, including UA
Pipefitters Local 393 of San Jose, CA, which passed a
resolution May 15 condemning the H2B Guest Worker
program. Photo by Bincy Jacob. |
From the New Orleans
Worker Center for Racial Justice:
On Wednesday, May 21, at
12 p.m., Indian hunger strikers representing over 550 of their
countrymen—all of them survivors of a labor trafficking ring
within the H2B guest worker visa program—will challenge Sens.
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Judd Greg (R-NH) to visit the
hunger strikers and confront the abuses of the H2B guest
worker visa program the senators seek to expand.
"It's an insult that while we are waiting to
tell Congress how companies are turning guest workers into
forced laborers, Congress is inside trying to figure out how
to bring more," said Paul Konar, a hunger striker and former
worker at Gulf Coast shipyard operator Signal
International.
Konar is one of over 550 Indian workers who
were lured to the United States in late 2006 with false
promises of green cards and work-based permanent residency—for
which they paid up to $20,000 apiece—and instead received
temporary, 10-month H2B visas and worked at Signal under
deplorable conditions.
You can follow the workers' struggle via
their blog: http://www.neworleansworkerjustice.org
For more information, contact:
Stephen Boykewich, Media
Director, New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice
Mobile: 504-655-0876;
email:
spboykewich@gmail.com
Ask Sesame Street Why
It Wants to Promote
Stemilt Cherries
 ILCA Vice President Jason Lefkowitz, Change to Win's
Online Campaigns Organizer, has written a clever blog post on
CtWConnect about a
serious issue: on May 9, the UFW discovered that cherry grower
Stemilt Inc. was forcing pickers to live without shelter
or access to clean water. And it gets worse: Sesame Street
is shilling for Stemilt cherries. Check out
CtWConnect, or read Lefkowitz's DailyKos diary to
find out the Sesame Street connection, and link to a form you
can send to Sesame Street's producers asking them why they
promote this company.
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