Copyright © 2013 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
“For years we
celebrated May Day as a workers’ day, but now it’s been beautifully taken over
by the immigration issue,” said Lorena Gonzalez, who just stepped down after
eight years heading the San Diego-Imperial Counties Central Labor Council to
run for the state Assembly, at a May Day rally at the San Diego Civic Center
Plaza. “We’re going to have good immigration reform that benefits all workers. We will all benefit when 11 million workers
can come out of the shadows.”
Gonzalez’
presence at the event was symbolic of a sweeping change in the American labor
movement’s historically anti-immigrant stance. It wasn’t until 2000 that the
national AFL-CIO convention switched its position on immigration and passed a
resolution supporting rights for undocumented people in the U.S. And the
conversion of May Day from a semi-official workers’ holiday into a day devoted
to immigrants’ rights began in 2006, after Republicans in the House of
Representatives pushed a highly punitive anti-immigration bill written by
Congressmember James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin). Millions of U.S. immigrants
and their supporters turned out in the streets to protest the Sensenbrenner
bill. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate, though elements of it
are still on the table as proposed amendments to the comprehensive immigration
bill currently under Senate consideration.
The dominance of
immigration issues at this year’s May Day celebration became clear when
contingents arrived in the Civic Center Plaza carrying both U.S. and Mexican
flags, and when many of the speakers in the Plaza spoke in Spanish. “This is an
historic day here,” said event MC Pedro Rios. “We’re uniting with workers not
only from the U.S. or the Americas, but the world. Our struggle is not unique.
Today we want to lift up a typical situation the janitors are dealing with” —
which was explained by the speaker he called up, Rosa Lopez, in untranslated
Spanish.
A number of
speakers expressed concern about the increasing use of E-Verify, a Web-based
system that supposedly enables employers to find out if workers and job
applicants have the legal right to work in the U.S. E-Verify has made so many
mistakes — not only identifying undocumented workers as legal residents but
red-flagging legal residents and even U.S. citizens as so-called “illegals” —
that one writer joked it should be called “E-Falsify.” Nonetheless, at least
three states require employers to use E-Verify on all new hires, and
Republicans in Congress are demanding that its use be mandated nationwide.
Hermán Ramirez, organizing director of Local 135 of the United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW), said that when his union tries to enroll workers,
“the first thing we’re asked is, ‘Will the company E-Verify and deport us?’”
The most
powerful story told about E-Verify was given in Spanish (with an interpreter
translating into English) by a woman identified only as Virginia. “I came from
Vera Cruz because I’m a single mother and I needed to pay for my daughter’s
education,” Virginia said. “I’ve worked in housekeeping and hotels. It’s
difficult work and poorly paid. Two years ago I started working at the Hilton
in Mission Valley, and often we’d work through lunch breaks to finish the rooms
we were assigned. When my co-workers started fighting for a union, I joined
because I realized we deserved good pay, a fair workload and the ability to
provide for our families. In March this year the hotel was sold, and the new
owner did not guarantee our jobs. We did a civil disobedience action, and the
owner said they’d hire us back but would check our papers through E-Verify.
When the company advised me and 14 other co-workers that we did not pass, we
knew we had to fight back. We staged a 14-day hunger strike, but the company
fired us anyway.”
Virginia
described herself as “undocumented and fired,” but said she and her fellow
workers will have to “keep fighting. We have to win comprehensive immigration
reform to live in peace, and also union [recognition] so we can live and work
in peace and dignity.”
“I learned at
six years old that workers are the foundation of this country and the world,”
said student activist Malia Rodriguez. “Congress has to give the workers’
rights because workers are their foundation.”
Other speakers
at the event included Barrio Logan community leader and former City Council
candidate Christian Ramirez and Guillermo Gomez of Union del Barrio. The event
ended with an invocation by Rev. Wayne Riggs of the Interfaith Committee for
Worker Justice, after which the participants staged a march to Chicano Park and
held another, longer rally there.
