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.
