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NEWS & LETTERS, April-May 2006Sleeping giant stirs in immigrant marchesMass gathering in ChicagoChicago--Some 100,000 people converged on the city’s center on March 10. It is considered the largest immigrant rights march in the city’s history, and possibly the nation’s. Drawing participants from the entire region, the demonstration was a statement that in the heart of the country, immigrant labor would be heard and seen. A march shut down traffic in the downtown Loop where a rally in Federal Plaza took place. Some marchers had not reached Federal Plaza, site of the rally, by the time it ended. The crowd was overwhelmingly Mexican, with representation by Poles, Chinese and Irish. Participants had heard about it through the radio, by word of mouth, and through community groups. The outpouring exhibited aspects of a general strike. Businesses had to close or find substitutes for workers who left to march. Students left classes to go downtown. Attendance at one high school was cut in half. For employees fired for going to the march, a defense committee has been formed. The pain felt by some businesses and the surprising show of unity and strength underscored that immigrants, especially the estimated 11 million undocumented, are woven into the U.S. economy. As one marcher put it, “Most people don’t realize how much work we do, but it’s part of their daily lives. We are putting up all the buildings and cooking all the food. Today they’ll understand.” A bill passed the House this winter, H.R. 4437 which intends to overtly stop illegal immigration but, as with previous measures, effectively disciplines immigrant labor all the more. The march was a response. In the same week as Chicago’s march, over 30,000 rallied in Washington, D.C. West Coast immigrant protests took place in Oregon and California (see below). --Jim Mills * * * ‘I came here for work’Chicago--I joined the march for immigrants. It was a strike. It proved we have power. If immigrants didn’t work one day, the U.S. would lose millions of dollars. Immigrants work very hard. I came here for work. When you don’t have documents, it’s harder to find a job and the employers are harsher. One of the people trying to harm immigrants said the economy is down because of them. But immigrants work for $6 an hour and less. In places where there are no immigrants, wages are higher. If you are born here and the police stop you, you pay a fine and go on your way. If you don’t have papers, you’re put in jail and deported. Without papers, you can’t get a drivers license to go to work, and you can’t get a Social Security number. The laws are harder for the documented immigrant too. The conditions immigrants work under have gotten worse. Before when the boss wanted us to work overtime, we were paid for it. Now working overtime is a favor, an unpaid favor. He says, “Can you do me a favor, and work longer?” and if you say no, he makes a call and you’re fired. This happens when someone can’t come to work, and everyone covers a part of her job, without more pay. The union sometimes helps, sometimes not. It used to be that when you had been working at a job for one year, you had full rights. Now it’s two years. This means also that you do not get a raise until two years of work. This is against the contract. I called the union about getting my raise after a year. The rep never called back. Worse, a friend was hired as a temporary building cleaner--for two years. He was supposed to be made permanent after six months. If you work second shift, the boss thinks he can change your shift if he likes. He doesn’t ask. He’s not supposed to be able to decide for you. Maybe you have another job, or your family needs you, but it happens anyway. Amnesty for undocumented workers may help make these job conditions better. --Martin * * * 'We're workers, not criminals' Oakland, Cal.--Hundreds of immigrant workers and their supporters filled St. Elizabeth Elementary School playground in the heart of Oakland’s largest Latino neighborhood, the Fruitvale district, to observe Immigrants’ Rights Day. Most speakers at the Feb. 25 event were Latino, but Asian and African immigrant workers addressed the crowd as well. What was foremost on their minds was H.R. 4437, the immigrant-bashing bill introduced by Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), which passed the House in December. The bill seems to have picked up where California’s notorious Prop. 187 in 1994 left off. H.R. 4437, known as Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, calls for a 700-mile double fence (with a patrolled roadway between) along the U.S.-Mexico border. It boosts illegal immigration to an aggravated felony and allows local authorities to enforce immigration law. Claire Horton, a physician at Fruitvale’s La Clinica de La Raza, announced that the clinic has taken a formal position opposing H.R. 4437. She went on to say, “We don’t care if you just got here from Mexico yesterday. We’re going to give you health care.” But this could spell the end of La Clinica. Many participants held up signs that read, “We’re not criminals, we are workers.” This simple declaration took on another dimension when a day laborer from Nicaragua pointed out that anti-immigrant lawmakers did not count on the unity of Latinos. That worker unity, or cooperation, is what Karl Marx saw as the basis of a new power through which the laborer “strips off the fetters of his individuality and develops the capacities of his species,” that is, the capacities of being human. --David Mizuno’Oto |
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