7/2: Labor Leaders Welcome Defeat of Senate Immigration Bill

PRESS RELEASE - For immediate release, 6/29/07

Contact: Renee Saucedo, 415-425-6575
David Bacon, 510-851-1589

Press Conference: Service Employees Local 87, 240 Golden Gate Ave., San
Francisco, CA
11AM, Monday, July 2, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- A group of the most influential labor leaders in
Northern California welcomed the defeat of the immigration bill in the U.S.
Senate. They called its flaws unfixable, and propose that work begin on
immigration reform that will protect the rights of workers and immigrants.
They will hold a press conference at the San Francisco Labor Council on
Monday, July 2, to explain their reasons for opposing the bill, and their
proposals for a different approach to immigration reform.

Labor leaders who will participate in this event include Chuck Mack,
President of Joint Council 7 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
and Ron Lind, President of Local 5 of the United Food and Commercial
Workers, Olga Miranda of SEIU Local 87 and Renee Saucedo of the San
Francisco Day Labor Program. They will be joined by the officers of other
local unions and central labor councils, and organizers for community-based
worker organizing projects.

Mack said, "The proposed guest worker programs in the Senate bill werer an
invitation to the abuse of immigrants themselves. These programs have
historically been used by large corporations to attack the conditions our
unions have fought to achieve. We need a way for people to come to this
country legally that does not force them to become guest workers.."

Lind pointed to the recent wave of arrests of workers in union organizing
drives around the country, including at his union's effort to organize the
huge Smithfield Foods pork plant in North Carolina.
"Immigration enforcement is already being used to deny immigrant workers
their labor rights ," he said, "which undermines conditions for all workers.
We need immigration reform which will protect the organizing rights of
immigrant workers, instead of the current wave of raids which seeks to
punish them when they stand up for their rights."

Renee Saucedo, director of the San Francisco Day Labor Program, said
"12 million people in this country desperately need legal status.
The Senate bill was a false promise -- most undocumented people would never
have been able to achieve it. We need a real legalization program that will
offer people rights and residence status, in the same way people were
legalized by the bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. We intend to keep
fighting until we achieve this goal."

The three will be joined by a group of other leaders who will make concrete
proposals for immigration reform which will protect the interests of workers
and unions. Immigration reform may still be considered by the House of
Representatives, and the labor leaders intend to call on the California
Congressional Delegation, especially Representative Zoe Lofgren, chair of
the House Immigration Subcommittee, to support their proposals.

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David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org