2008: Immigration and Labor, Where Are We Now?

2008: Immigration and Labor
Where Are We Now?
Speaker: Brian Cruz,
Immigrant Rights and Labor Activist

SF Gray Panthers Monthly Event
Tuesday, May 20, 12:30 – 3:30 PM
Fireside Room, Unitarian-Universalist Center
1187 Franklin St., betw. O’Farrell and Geary

This May Day, immigration and labor stand at crossroads.

In immigration, a legislative stalemate exists between reactionary interests that hope to simply expel immigrants, versus liberal business interests that hope to exploit more immigrants through a Guest Worker program like the infamous 1950s bracero program. So instead, immigration police are sweeping the nation in the worst workplace raids in decades. But workers all over the country have marched on May Day to support immigrant rights.

In labor, a huge fight is developing. Workers will need strong and united action against layoffs and wage cuts as the country goes into recession, yet one of the country’s largest unions is rolling out a strategy of growth by cooperation with corporations and employers, and is signing secret contracts with employers forbidding strikes and designating which facilities can be unionized. But longshore workers have defied their employers and even their top union leaders in an 8-hr shut-down of all shipping on the West Coast, demanding an end to the MidEast oil war.

It is becoming clear that workers’ needs and immigrants’ needs are the same. We will explore these connections and how we can work together to build a movement that improves life for us all.

Brian Cruz is longtime immigrant rights and labor activist. He has been involved planning May Day marches and protests against ICE raids, and has organized against national SEIU’s support of guest worker programs and interference in local union politics.

Read more about this meeting:
http://graypantherssf.igc.org/08-05-20-gen_meeting.htm