These people are so transparent!
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Union chief backs employers over immigration
Reforms an issue for D.C., head of AFL-CIO says
Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Apr. 12, 2007 12:00 AM

The top official at the state AFL-CIO may have some common ground with the business community on the top hot-button issue of the day: illegal immigration.

"I think it's a federal issue," said Rebekah Friend, who recently took over as the secretary-treasurer of the organization. And she believes that Congress is finally ready to do something about the porous border and the number of people already in this country illegally.

Those words could have come out of the mouth of Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.
But the similarities don't stop there.

Hamer and most other business groups have been at the Capitol trying to kill legislation that would penalize companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers. They argue the measure is unnecessary and unfair.

Friend said the state AFL-CIO hasn't yet taken a position on the legislation by Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, or on a similar initiative being circulated for the 2008 ballot. But Friend, like Hamer, doesn't believe that large numbers of employers are knowingly hiring people who are not supposed to be here.

"You probably will find this amazing to hear from the AFL-CIO, but I believe most employers practice due diligence when they're hiring," Friend said. "I believe most employers are trying to do the right thing."

She said companies are operating under a system "that isn't working."

Friend does not dispute that there are illegal immigrants in Arizona - a Pew Hispanic Center study puts the figure at close to 500,000 - and that many of them are, in fact, holding jobs. But in line with her belief that most employers aren't actively looking for undocumented workers, she doesn't believe the issue of illegal immigration harms the ability of the AFL-CIO to organize.

"Our position is this: These are workers, they're working somewhere," Friend said. "So we believe that because no employer would knowingly violate state and federal laws, we can only assume that they're a legal, documented worker."

And that, she said, means the union can try to sign them up.

Nor does Friend believe it will be difficult to organize people who might be reticent to do anything to bring attention to themselves.

"We have not seen the situation where a worker says, 'I will not join a union because I am not here legally,'" she said.

Friend said labor organizing has been good in Arizona. Recently, about 4,500 employees voted by a 17-1 ratio to be represented by the Service Employees International Union.

Total AFL-CIO membership in Arizona is about 145,000.

The union has had to rethink all of its strategies in the past few decades as Arizona has moved from a state with unionized blue-collar jobs, many of them in the mining industry, to jobs in the service sector. Friend believes there are opportunities among these groups to find new union members in "some areas where we haven't been as active in the past."

So where is the next big push?

"I think the hotel industry here is ripe," she said. "I think the laundry industry here, which supports the hotel industry, of course, is ripe."

And she sees a big future in organizing public employees like the Service Employees International Union victory in Tucson.

One barrier to organizing state employees is the fact that public employee unions here don't have the same bargaining rights as some of their counterparts elsewhere. There is no process of negotiations, with pay hikes instead set as part of the budget process. And there is no right to strike.

"Let's face it: What public employees need in this state is collective bargaining," she said. "They need the same rights as any other worker to negotiate a fair salary."

Friend conceded that's not likely to happen, but she said state workers still can be persuaded to join a union.

"The reason you would join a union now is the advocacy and the representation," she said, noting union members at the Capitol pushing for salary hikes.

"Is it difficult to negotiate with 90 people every year for your salary, benefits, wages, working conditions? Absolutely," Friend said. "But that's the situation you're in, and I think you have to have advocates down there."

Friend's affiliation with unions goes back nearly 30 years, when, as a single mom with two kids, she went to work for Arizona Public Service.

"I went into the union craft jobs because of the better pay," she said.

That led to her become a union steward for her local office of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, then a "bull steward" who supervises other stewards, and eventually to an elected post within the union.

Five years ago, she was elected president of the state AFL-CIO, a position that in union circles is less significant than the full-time secretary-treasurer.

That background has made her obsessive about buying only American-made products, and, whenever possible, only those produced by union workers.

She is proud of her Dodge van, which she said is all-American, right down to the tires. She is so dedicated to driving only U.S.-made vehicles that when her van was in for repair, she argued with the rental agency until they found her a domestic vehicle.

Some items, she said, are harder to find.

Friend said she has to settle for just U.S.-produced, as opposed to union-made, women's clothing, as there really isn't much of a unionized textile industry in this country any more. Even worse, she said, are clothes and shoes for children.

http://www.azcentral.com/abgnews/articl ... 0412.html#