by Mike Pesa
About 100,000 immigrants, union members, students, religious leaders, elected officials and community activists came together on Saturday, October 4 for a rally and festival. The event was held in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, in Queens—the most diverse community on Earth. The momentous event was the climax of a two-week long Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride. 18 busses filled with immigrants and their supporters departed from Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and other cities across the country. The busses stopped in over 100 cities to address supporters, meet with political leaders, and commemorate the original freedom rides of 1961. The ambitious project involved over 1,000 unions, religious groups, and community organizations, with organized labor making up the core of the coalition. The demands of the riders and their supporters are four-fold:
THE RALLY:
The park was filled with flags of many different nations as the crowd assembled near the Unisphere, a giant steel globe which was created for the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. The aroma of ethnic foods from various cultural booths filled the air. Many people held signs that read “No human is illegal” and “Justice. Amnesty. Liberty.” Union leaders addressed the crowd. “The struggle of immigrant workers is our struggle,” declared AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, himself the son of an Irish immigrant. “We believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Sweeney and others drove home the point that workers are strongest when they are united. Riders from each of the 18 busses introduced themselves. Riders had come from as far as Los Angeles, Seattle, and even Hawaii. Religious leaders were also present at the rally. Cardinal Edward M. Egan, Catholic Archbishop of New York, spoke about family reunification. “Families are being damaged by cruel separation and in all too many instances shameful advantage is being taken of men and women in the work force who do not have proper papers.”
A NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT:
In many ways, the current wave of immigrant rights activism is the beginning of a new civil rights movement. Like the civil rights of 1950s and ‘60s, the new movement aims to extend the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to people who are not receiving fair or equal treatment and to work together to overcome the divisions in society that weaken everyone, workers most of all. The Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride was patterned after the Freedom Ride of 1961. The 1961 Freedom Ride was organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in response to a Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated bus terminals. Black and white activists rode busses across the south, stopping at terminals to desegregate the waiting rooms. On many occasions they were met with violence. White mobs beat them with pipes and sticks. Southern government officials harassed and sometimes arrested the riders. Yet the riders stood their ground and won nationwide support for their cause, giving a major boost to the civil rights movement.
Fortunately, the Freedom Ride of 2003 was not subjected to violence, despite some grumbling by white supremacist groups. The biggest challenge the riders met was when the Los Angeles bus was pulled over by immigration officials in Texas. The agents boarded the bus and demanded that everyone disclose their immigration status. The riders all refused to speak and began singing “We Shall Overcome” in unity. Supporters of the riders made calls to the White House and other centers of power, urging their release. Finally, the agents, having failed to find any evidence that any of the riders had entered the country illegally, gave up and left. The bus continued on their path to New York in victory.
Several of the original SNCC freedom riders of 1961 were present at the rally, including Congressman John Lewis and the Rev. James Lawson, a civil rights and labor leader and President of the Los Angeles-based Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.
“In 1961, 42 years ago, we won. We won. 42 years later, the freedom riders of 2003, you’re going to win, because you’re right”, Congressman Lewis assured the audience.
Rev. Lawson, who had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and had joined the freedom ride of 1961, shared his vision for a just society and urged everyone to help make it a reality. “We want a society where equality and justice and liberty are not simple words but represent public policy and practice, for every boy and every girl and every man and woman, in every part of this land. And we must begin by seeing to it that those who are working people, who are kept in poverty, kept from being able to see themselves as citizens or naturalized, that here is the beginning of a new movement whereby human dignity and civil rights will become the common theme for this land”, Lawson declared. “We have to say to George Bush and to the Congress and to the Governors: No human being in the sight of God is illegal. No human being in the sight of God is undocumented. Every[one]…has a right for jobs with dignity, for safety at work, for families being united and able to support themselves and sustain themselves in a living and meaningful fashion.” Lawson told his audience to “go back to our communities, the neighborhoods where we live, the congregations of which we are part, the unions of which we are members, and we must there organize, organize the resistance, resistance to plantation capitalism, to racism, to sexism, to poverty, to inhumanity to one another. Let us turn towards one another and unite like never before.”
FREEDOM’S SOUNDTRACK
Interspersed with the speakers was a diverse selection of musical performances by local ethnic bands, including an Ethiopian drum and dance ensemble and a Chinese band complete with a ceremonial dragon. Additionally, four professional groups headlined the musical lineup: Bronco, Tabou Combo, The Mighty Sparrow, and Wyclef Jean. Wyclef Jean in particular used his set to make a statement about immigrants’ rights. “Wyclef Jean is no different. See, I’m the son of an immigrant! No discrimination. Hold up, let me represent for the Haitians”, he rapped. He then proceeded to freestyle in four different languages (English, Creole, Spanish, and French) before moving into his lineup of songs.
The rally was a huge success, garnering prominent headlines in the nation’s biggest newspapers. The message that all of the speakers stressed was that this was not the end, but the beginning. The labor movement will continue to fight until ALL workers are treated with justice and dignity on and off the job site.
The Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride was organized and promoted with the help of UBC members, including officers of the New York District Council of Carpenters. One of the key figures behind UBC involvement in the Freedom Ride has been Carlisle Paul, a Field Representative for the District Council’s Labor Management team. Carlisle came to America from Trinidad in 1981 in search of a better life. Fifteen years ago he became a union carpenter. Since that time Carlisle has become very active in the union, working to increase the market share and improve the lives of the members.
When the NYC Central Labor Council first approached the District Council about the freedom ride, Carlisle jumped at the opportunity to participate. He took special interest in the task of reaching out to members of the Caribbean community in New York, distributing flyers for the event at the West Indian Day Parade. “I'm interested because I as an immigrant came to this country and I've seen the benefits of it, especially for labor.”, explained Carlisle. “I was able to get my naturalization and work for a good paying wage, and get benefits from my family. I was able to do the right thing. So I'd like to see others get that same opportunity, especially because [many immigrants are] working non-union, not being treated right, not getting benefits, not getting a fair wage. In return, once they can get naturalized like I did, they'll be able to work for the union rate, get the benefits. We'll be able to have a sustainable community for everyone…I've been seeing a lot of illegal immigrants working out there and not getting their fair share. They're all contributing to this great city and this great country, America, and I think it's fair that they all be included into the system and get the same treatment as everyone else.”
This attitude marks a break with labor’s past. Ever since modern labor unions were first founded in the nineteenth century, there have been conflicts over the immigration issue. When immigrants from Germany and Ireland (and later from southern and eastern Europe) first came to the U.S. they were met with violence and hostility by “native” born Americans. Around the turn of the century, Chinese workers were so hated that they frequently had to flee their homes to escape white lynch mobs. Such shameful hate crimes were often committed (officially or unofficially) by labor unions, whose members saw the Chinese as a threat to their existence.
There were always exceptions, of course. For example, the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) made a priority of supporting Chinese workers and sometimes even held meetings in Chinese restaurants to drive home their point. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters also took a pro-immigrant stance early on, although it has sometimes wavered in subsequent eras. UBC founder P.J. McGuire wrote in the November, 1897 issue of the Carpenter magazine, "What has really produced the surplus of labor complained of is not immigration, but the astounding displacement of labor that has been going on for years and is still going on with undiminished rapidity because of the development and extended application of machinery, the concentration of capital in fewer hands, the trustification of industries, and the ever-lessened ability of the broad masses of the people to consume the wares produced in such profusion, because their purchasing power grows less as the produce of their labor increases.” McGuire concluded, "Let us welcome to our organizations every fellow-worker who comes to us with an open heart and a clean purpose and is willing to stand in line with us to battle against unjust conditions and for the ultimate aims of the labor movement, no matter where he was born or from whence he has immigrated."
McGuire’s farsightedness served the union well. The Brotherhood was built largely through the participation of immigrants, hardworking carpenters from Scandinavia, Ireland, Italy, and around the world. Many of the current members are descended from these immigrants, proud unionists who passed on their tradition to subsequent generations. Had McGuire and his successors chosen to reject immigrants, these carpenters would have been forced to work non-union for lower wages, undermining the UBC when it was still young and vulnerable. The trade might look very different today if the spirit of exclusion had prevailed.
The rationale behind organized labor’s old anti-immigrant stance was that poor immigrants arriving in large numbers take limited jobs from native-born Americans, drive down wages by working for less, and undermine unions by scabbing at the sites of strikes. These concepts, more or less, have been at the heart of anti-immigrant sentiment ever since. Yet this argument has never held up to scrutiny without resting on xenophobic prejudice to back it up. Name calling and stereotyping are part and parcel of the process. First it was those drunken Irish “Paddies” tarnishing the reputation of the working class. Then those illiterate Italian “degos” started taking our jobs. After that we had to deal with all those lazy Mexican “wetbacks”. Clearly these stereotypes are inaccurate.
The wealthy capitalists and bosses have always used the tactic of “divide and conquer” to prevent the working class from successfully organizing for their rights. For example, the first slave laws in this country were enacted to prevent solidarity and joint actions by black and white indentured servants. When one group of workers is pitted against another, both groups lose. Labor has always been strongest when it’s united. This basic principle is the rationale for the very existence of labor unions. In today’s globalized economy, the only path for survival is for workers to unite across borders and without regard to national origin or immigration status. Now more than ever, we, the wage earners of the world, are all in the same boat. As Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together or we will surely hang separately".
“I think the members of the unions should support the immigrant workers' rights because, these immigrants are the ones that are out there working, doing construction work, and by their doing that, these contractors that they're working for are paying them next to nothing.”, stated Carlisle Paul. “The contractor will look for the cheapest, and that will eliminate the work that our union members are supposed to get. So I think that our union members should support trying to organize these illegal workers, get them naturalized and bring them into the union, because they're pretty good workers too. And they all deserve a good life, like everyone else. It's better that we include them with us, then to leave them out there, and then they keep taking away our work from us, and the contractors will then proceed to pay them less”.
Carlisle explained what the union does to help immigrant workers. “People from the organizing department and the labor management department…[work] to create more job opportunities and increase market share for our union, the Carpenters union. And by us doing that we usually meet up with a lot of brothers and sisters who are only working illegally and would like to get the opportunity to work [legally] for benefits and be able to take care of their families like we do. So, the complaint that they have is that the contractors use them, and pay them next to nothing or sometimes they don't even pay them at all, but they're scared to come out and talk because they figure, well, they might report them to the INS and they might want to deport them, so they're scared to come forward. But I would like them to have rights like everyone else so they could come forward and speak out, and that way we can know who they are and we could try to help them.”
He added, “I think right now the reason for that call for immigrant workers rights, is because we've seen over the years that the [unionized] labor force has been shrinking, and I think it's been shrinking because of too many illegal immigrants out there working non-union, and some of these contractors have them working for them and not paying them. And like I said, it's just shrinking the labor force overall. So I think if we reach out and let them know that they come forward and we could bring them into the fold. I think this is the time for that.”
A look at today’s immigration policy would suggest that Lady Liberty has lowered her torch and turned her face away. Yet the labor movement of the twenty-first century (especially in New York City, where nearly 40% of our residents are foreign-born), would be wise to adopt her motto as our own:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
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The UBC: A Union of Immigrants
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"