[Nyclocal] Immigrant Working-Class Solidarity on the Gulf Coast

Wed May 21 20:56:28 MDT 2008

          Immigrant Working-Class Solidarity on the Gulf Coast                            

  Nakba Day, 15 May, means "Day of the Catastrophe" and marks the  beginning of the Palestinian exodus following Israel's creation in  1948. Solidarity salutes the brave struggle of the Palestinian people  with these reflections:

  - The Nakba and the Israeli State by David Finkel

  - Our strategy for Palestine by Mustafa Barghouthi [Published on Ramallah Online]

  - We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession by Eve Spangler [Published on CounterPunch]

  The New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice has begun to forge  multiracial, multilingual working class solidarity throughout the city  and region - among guest workers, day laborers, homeless people, and  public housing residents. In the process, these organizing projects  challenge the larger labor movement to reconsider its dominant  organizing framework.  

For almost 75 years, unions have looked to the Wagner Act, or  National Labor Relations Act, as a basis for labor rights - and  neglected the use of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits involuntary  servitude. In doing so, unions acknowledge the primacy of property  rights; the NLRA is built on the Commerce Clause. The Act also does not  cover agricultural, domestic, and other sectors of the workforce that  are largely women and men of color. In the years that followed, this  weakened effective solidarity between largely white industrial workers  and the working class as a whole.  As organizers, we often use “rights rhetoric” – highlighting the legal  right to strike and the illegality of employer interference in  agitation. However, the only way these rights are ensured is through  appropriate action. In the 1930s, this meant sit-down strikes and other  militant tactics. Today, after decades of union-employer partnership,  rights outlined by the NLRA have been whittled away
 by amendments, case  law, and prevailing anti-union Board interpretation. The all-out  offensive of capitalism over the past thirty years, called  neoliberalism, has driven down wages, deskilled labor to make workers  easily replaceable, and globalized the work force demands. In this new  environment, we should consider looking backward.  

In his classic work, Black Reconstruction,  WEB Dubois asserted that enslaved people refusing to work the fields in  the midst of the Civil War were on strike. Immigrants under today’s  guest worker programs increasingly find themselves in slave-like  conditions. Guest workers demanding 13th Amendment rights – while also  organizing mass action – recapture a forgotten legal basis for  workplace rights and offer another useful framework for alliances  between immigrants and African Americans.  

Fighting back in the Strawberry Fields  On Valentine’s Day 2008, thirty Mexican H2A (agricultural) “guest  workers” in Amite, Louisiana walked off the job to protest the  slave-like conditions in the strawberry fields and reclaim their  dignity.  

Strawberry picking is back-breaking work. The men were bent  down over bushes for hours while there boss, Charles “Bimbo” Relan paid  as little as $2 an hour for piecework. When they stopped to stretch,  “Bimbo” yelled that he would deport them to Mexico. The workers were  not given water or allowed to use the bathroom. With the boss holding  their passports, the workers mobility was limited. And under US law,  H2A workers must stay with the employer specified on their visa. So  they had a choice: work under slave-like conditions, or go back to  joblessness and poverty in Mexico. Instead, they decided to organize.  The thirty men had been recruited from the indigenous community of San  Luis Potosin, Mexico. Trade agreements such as NAFTA destroyed their  local economy and pushed these workers to pay recruiters nearly $1000  for the “privilege” of finding work. In solidarity, a delegation of African Americans attempted a citizen’s arrest of Relan for violating the federal
 laws that define slavery, peonage, human trafficking, and servitude in the United States.  

  Bimbo struck back: he was forced to return the passports, but fired the  workers and illegally evicted them. The Department of Justice has  opened an investigation on Relan for human trafficking. Since the  actions, pickers continue to organize. Some moved in the wake of the  firing and eviction, but other Mexican Strawberry pickers in the area  were inspired to organize.    Indian H2B Shipyard Workers organizing in Texas and Mississippi  How You Can Help

1.  Wednesday, May 21 nation-wide solidarity actions on the week  anniversary of the strike. Possibilities for actions include one-day  solidarity fasting; prayer vigils; public educational events;  petitioning. Please report your action plans to Krista Hanson, krista at jwj.org  as soon as possible so we can report all actions to the workers and to  the media. There will be a major rally and press event on that day in  Washington D.C.

  2. Petitions and delegations to Congressional offices. There is a  sign-on letter that Congressional Representatives and Senators will  send to the Department of Justice calling for the granting of continued  presence for the workers in the U.S. Solidarity activists can gather  signatures on the petition and then deliver it to Representatives'  offices. The petitions can be delivered on May 21, and again during the  week of May 27-30, the congressional recess when Reps are in their home  offices.

  3. Raise money for the strike fund. The workers are putting in tens of  thousands of dollars to make the hunger strike possible, and they need  funds to pay for transportation, housing, and all the other  logistical support. Click here for information on contributing.

  4. Visit the workers if you are in or near Washington D.C. There is a schedule of where to find them on the website for DC Jobs with Justice.
These  workers paid recruiters up to $20,000 on a promise from recruiters- in  New Orleans, Mississippi, and Mumbai- of good jobs, permanent  residency, and a chance to bring their families to the US. Workers sold  their homes, took high-interest loans, and plunged their families into  debt to pay for the American Dream. But again, when they arrived, they  found that all the promises were false. They were brought to Gulf Coast  shipyards of Signal International on 10-month visas, forced to pay over  $1,000 per month to live in labor camps (temporary company towns) up to  24 to a room, in horrific conditions. When they asked for improvements,  they were humiliated by managers who told them that they had nothing to  complain about: surely this was better than the way they had lived in  India.  

These workers organized for more humane treatment and the  company responded by sending armed guards into the labor camps, pulling  the organizers out of bed, holding them captive and calling the police  with the intention of deporting them. The pressure of being deported  back to India with a $20,000 debt waiting at home drove one of the  organizers to attempt suicide.  

     Indian Shipyard Workers on Strike!On May 9, 2007, 300 workers  went on strike to demand the release of their organizers. The company  backed down, released them – and fired them. The company then ran an  intimidation campaign on its employees, forcing the workers to quiet  down and accept the conditions of labor trafficking. Indian Worker  Congress continues to organize to fight international labor  trafficking.  

On the evening of March 5, 2008, almost 100 Indian workers met  for almost four hours in a filled a Pascagoula hall to discuss plans  for the next day’s action. Workers planned for their upcoming action in  Hindi, Tamil, English, and Malayalam. The next morning, workers still  employed by the company walked off the job- symbolically turning in  their hard hats at the company gate to call attention to their  continued abuses under the H2B visa program.  

Signal workers initiated litigation against the labor  recruiters and ongoing actions in the U.S. and India. After a tour  through Civil Rights history in the Southeast, the workers arrived in  Washington DC where they have began a hunger strike in front of the  Indian Embassy and White House. The hunger strike indicts the flawed  H2B visa system as a form of indentured servitude, demanding that the  U.S. and Indian governments meet to implement a more equitable labor  exchange, asking for a guarantee of safety for themselves and their  families, and demanding that Congress halt H2B expansion until a  thorough Congressional investigation of abuses under the program is  done. They repeat their call for the Department of Justice to prosecute  their former employer, Signal International.  Forming a new regional & multiracial working class unityThe  Workers’ Center organizes through leadership schools, teach-ins, and  trainings both at the office and in community spaces. The
 center  focuses on building in opportunities for solidarity actions. On March  6, a social event linking the Indian worker struggle to New Orleans  organizing was attended by Jornaleros (Day Laborers), Brazilian  shipfitters, local Black leaders, homeless community members, public  housing residents, a SNCC veteran, and reconstruction activists in  addition to the Indian workers. Attendees spoke Spanish, English,  Tamil, Hindi, Portuguese; they shared stories, music, and camaraderie.  Attendees agreed that the fight they share is a fight for freedom and  human liberation embodied in the 13th amendment. 

  For more information on the Alliance of Guestworkers for Dignity and the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice , visit   
   http://www.neworelansworkerjustice.org
   http://www.myspace.com/neworleansworkerscenter

http://www.americanempireproject.com/index.asp

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