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Unionizing Is Catch-22 for Illegal Immigrants
Jobs: Undocumented status makes them vulnerable to workplace retaliation.
Federal agencies seek to sidestep labor conflicts, but activists push for
change in laws.
By NANCY CLEELAND, Times Staff
Writer
Employers are
increasingly fighting union campaigns by firing or threatening
undocumented workers, thwarting labor organizers and defying the
intent--if not the letter--of immigration law.
Complaints of retaliatory firings have
climbed as unions aggressively recruit immigrants, considered crucial to
rebuilding the U.S. labor movement, and as the fast-growing economy pulls
in more unauthorized workers.
While
difficult to measure, the apparent backlash is clear enough to prompt
action from a number of federal agencies, including the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission and the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
which is seeking to reassure unions that it will back away from labor
conflicts when possible.
Just last week,
the EEOC announced a $72,000 settlement with a Minneapolis Holiday Inn
Express, where nine undocumented workers were fired and arrested after a
successful unionization drive.
It was
the first settlement under a new policy announced by the commission in
October extending protection to all workers, even those in the United
States illegally. In reality, however, undocumented immigrants take
greater risks because the government cannot force an employer to reinstate
someone who is here illegally, even if fired unjustly.
"The fear is pervasive," said Pamela
Thomason, regional attorney for the EEOC in Los Angeles, "and rational."
Labor is so concerned that the AFL-CIO,
an umbrella organization representing 13 million workers, recently
convened a task force on immigration laws that is expected to call for
major reform as early as next month.
Central to the controversy is a 1986
federal law that criminalized the hiring of undocumented workers. The law
was backed by labor, which at the time viewed illegal immigrants as
potential strikebreakers and argued that employers should be punished for
hiring them instead of U.S. citizens and other legal residents.
Since then, the proliferation of fake
documents, along with weak enforcement and the complicity of some
employers, has undercut the goal of reducing illegal immigration.
In fact, according to the INS, the
illegal immigrant population has grown by about 275,000 a year since the
law was enacted, and now stands at about 6 million.
Nearly half of the undocumented workers
are believed to live in California, and are concentrated in certain
low-wage sectors, including farm labor, janitorial services, hotel and
restaurant work, and garment and other low-skilled assembly jobs. In some
sectors, they may account for half the work force, researchers said.
Labor organizers said fear of firing or
deportation is one reason wages have stagnated and union organizing drives
have stalled in many of those sectors.
"When you have a group of workers who
are undocumented and easily frightened, it is almost impossible to win,"
said Joel Ochoa, an organizer with the International Assn. of Machinists,
which earlier this month lost a hard-fought campaign to organize an
immigrant work force at a wheel assembly plant in San Bernardino.
Being Fired After Voting for a
Union
In the shadow world of illegal
immigrants, stories of retaliatory firings spread quickly, and carry far
more weight than the carefully worded assurances of federal agencies.
Take the case of Rodrigo Romero, a
Vernon warehouse worker who was fired in October, one day after he voted
to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Romero, 39, a native of Belize, was
employed for seven years by La Curacao, a Los Angeles department store
catering to recent immigrants. For the past four years, he ran the
warehouse shipping department, earning $8.50 an hour.
He said supervisors had long known of
his undocumented status. A file of correspondence held by Romero shows
that La Curacao referred him to an immigration lawyer two years ago and
lent him $1,000 for a longshot attempt to gain legal residency.
But during the union organizing
campaign, Romero said, he was frequently reminded of his tenuous status
and urged to vote against the Teamsters. He said he openly supported the
union because many warehouse workers had not received raises in years and
some lacked proper safety equipment.
The
Teamsters won the secret ballot election. The next day, Romero was told he
had been terminated. The reason: He could not produce valid immigration
papers. La Curacao did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Romero took his case to the National
Labor Relations Board, which is investigating his and seven other
terminations at La Curacao. Even if he prevails, however, the typical NLRB
remedy of reinstatement is not available to him. The best he can hope for
is a limited amount of back pay.
"It's a
difficult situation, and here in Los Angeles, it comes up with some
frequency," said NLRB spokesman James Small. "We try to balance the rights
of employees with the need to acknowledge immigration laws. It isn't easy.
There's been a lot of agonizing over this issue."
Concern is not limited to California. As
demographics shift in the nation's blue-collar work force, the same tricky
terrain is being navigated in union drives as distant as Minnesota, where
an estimated 30,000 undocumented workers fill low-wage jobs.
Immigration status "has come up in every
single organizing campaign we've had in the last three years," said Jaye
Rykunyk, secretary-treasurer of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant
Employees International Union, Local 17, in Minneapolis.
"In a number of our hotels, we have lost
entire departments. And it really has a chilling effect on an organizing
drive. People understand very clearly [that] if you are involved in trying
to bring in a union, you put your job in jeopardy."
In a recent case that Rykunyk regarded
as particularly egregious, pro-union housekeeping workers at a Minneapolis
Holiday Inn Express were summoned to an office meeting and greeted by an
INS agent. The agent, who had been called by an assistant hotel manager,
determined that nine were illegal immigrants and arrested them.
Rykunyk bailed them out, then helped
shepherd the workers through a federal complaint process that ended with
the $72,000 settlement announced last week. This week, the workers asked
for amnesty, but they are almost certain to be deported to Mexico.
The incident infuriated the union and
embarrassed the INS, which had been touting a new enforcement strategy
that targets bad employers--those who recruit or even smuggle illegal
workers--and punishes them with hefty fines.
Gone are the days of sensational,
tip-generated workplace raids, which have not significantly deterred
illegal immigration and have the potential for dragging the INS into labor
disputes. At least, one INS official said, that is the goal.
"We have operating instructions that
very clearly say when a lead comes in, the local INS office needs to
search out whether there is a potential to be misused, and that's what did
not happen in Minneapolis," said Robert Bach, executive associate
commissioner for policy and planning at the INS.
Bach said he is continuing to talk
informally with the AFL-CIO to calm the waters. "There's a real
credibility issue here," he conceded. "The INS has to prove that it is
really committed to the new enforcement policy and can pull it off on the
ground level."
As an indication of the
agency's new direction, Bach pointed to a $1.9-million settlement with
Filiberto's, a Phoenix restaurant chain that admitted recruiting
undocumented workers.
It was a record
fine, and an exception to the rule. In the last five years, according to a
Times analysis of INS data, about 4,000 employers were fined for knowingly
hiring illegal immigrants. Nearly all of those fines were substantially
reduced or forgiven altogether.
"The
fact is that very little has been done to employers under this law," said
Lucas Guttentag, who directs the American Civil Liberties Union's
immigration project. "The focus has been overwhelmingly on workers.
Instead of helping the work force, it's only increased the level of
exploitation."
Active involvement by the
INS in retaliatory firings is actually quite rare, labor activists said.
Instead, many employers simply "review" an employee's records and find
them to be inadequate. The tactic is illegal--immigration documents can be
inspected only at the time of hiring--but often effective.
"There are many stories of employers
calling people in before a union vote to check their papers, even in cases
where they helped them get over the border," said Mike Garcia, president
of the Service Employees International Union, Local 1877, which represents
many immigrant janitors in Los Angeles.
"As long as everything's quiet, these
issues don't get raised. But [firings are] always available. That's the
problem with the law. It's become another weapon for the employer."
Law Allegedly Used to Punish
Workers
Garcia is among a group of
labor activists pushing the AFL-CIO to recommend a repeal of the 1986
"employer sanctions" law on the grounds that it has been used to punish
workers rather than employers. Instead, he said, the government should
legalize undocumented workers and spend more to enforce wage and safety
laws.
Not surprisingly, there is little
consensus on the matter, within or outside labor.
"What really would serve labor's
interest is an effective verification system that would prevent employers
from [hiring undocumented workers and] holding the prospect of termination
over employees' heads," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for
Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that favors tighter
immigration controls. "Otherwise what you have is an additional cudgel
crooked employers have against their crooked employees."
For Rodrigo Romero, the fired warehouse
worker, no proposal offers much hope. After 10 years of living in Los
Angeles, he can't imagine returning to Belize. And yet three months after
losing his job at La Curacao, he has not found a replacement.
"To tell the truth, I feel very
disillusioned," said Romero, who now does odd jobs in construction. "When
I signed the union card, I told them a lot of people are going to be fired
if we win. I just didn't know I would be the first one."
Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories
about: Immigrants
- Labor Relations, Illegal
Aliens - Employment, Dismissals,
Unions,
Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, Immigration
And Naturalization Service, United
States - Immigration, Labor
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