On the picket line

Data show immigrants vital to U.S. economy

Contrary to what’s stated on Fox News or at Tea Party rallies, immigrant workers play an incredibly important role in the U.S. economy. A report issued Aug. 30 in time for Labor Day, underwritten by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, reports, “Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers.” Author Giovanni Peri shows that the effect of immigration on wages is really positive — equivalent to a $5,100 annual raise for workers on average between 1990 and 2007 (measured in constant 2005 dollars). Take that, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin!

Mott’s workers defend jobs, union as strike ends

The Mott’s applesauce and apple juice workers held their picket line for 114 days. Dr Pepper Snapple bosses blinked on Sept. 13. That Monday, in the midst of the local apple harvest, DPS offered Local 220 of the Department Store union, which is a division of the Food and Commercial Workers union (RWDSU-UFCW), very different contract terms than the workers had rejected on May 23. Gone were demands for $1.50 an hour pay cut, with additional 50-cent cuts the next two years, for a total of $2.50 an hour. Gone were the demands for a pension freeze and a big jump in employee costs of medical care. Gone were DPS’s dreams of being able to run the plant with low-paid scab labor, jettison the skilled workers and kill the union. Instead DPS offered a wage freeze, with a $1,000 signing bonus, reduced pension contribution and a 401(k) plan for new hires, and 20 percent employee costs for medical care. Local 220 RWDSU-UFCW voted 185 to 62 to ratify the three-year contact on Sept. 13.

Though it wasn’t a clear-cut victory, the workers were able to stop a highly profitable company’s draconian attack. A very dangerous precedent would have been set for all workers in this recession if the strike had failed. But the workers are returning to work with their jobs and their union intact, and in these times that’s something to be really proud of. As Local 220 President Mike LeBerth told the New York Times, “Was it worth it? Yes, because we stood strong and the company knows we’re a force to be reckoned with.” (Sept. 13) Thanks, Local 220, for defending the right of all workers to a job with dignity and union representation.

Adjunct faculty protest in Chicago

The United Adjunct Faculty Association at East-West University in Chicago held a picket line Aug. 26 to protest EWU’s unfair labor practices. That same week the National Labor Relations Board filed an unfair labor practice against EWU for violating federally protected rights of adjunct faculty. The problem: When word leaked out last spring that the adjuncts, who constitute 85 percent of EWU’s educators, were organizing a union with the Illinois Education Association, they were all fired. (laborbeat.org)

Asian/Pacific Island workers abused

A powerful new report released Aug. 12 by the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, “Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence,” exposes the workplace violations and conditions affecting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The report is based on the first hearing organized by APALA, the AFL-CIO and more than 20 national and local organizations in November 2009, with more than 200 Asian Americans and Pacific Islander trade unionists, allies, elected officials and academics participating. The workers testified about health and safety violations, immigrant worker exploitation, wage theft, employer intimidation and union suppression, among other issues. A series of hearings is now underway in selected U.S. cities. To learn more about the report and the hearings, visit www.apalanet.org.

Tell P.R. governor to stop anti-worker brutality

On May 21 the president of Local 481 of the Food and Commercial Workers union, Luisa Acevedo, and her son, Frank Pizarro, were brutally beaten at a fundraising event for Puerto Rican Gov. Luis G. Fortuño. They were attacked by police while peacefully protesting the governor’s recent signing of legislation outsourcing tens of thousands of public sector jobs and negating collective bargaining rights. Though they were hurt badly enough to need hospitalization, the two have since recovered. To send a message to Gov. Fortuño to stop all anti-worker actions and police brutality, click on Take Action on ufcw.org.