Thread: Day laborers seek voice in immigration debate

Day laborers seek voice in immigration debate
3 August 2007

WASHINGTON - More than 200 day laborers and their allies went to Capitol Hill to bring their voices to immigration debate and call for reform that puts workers’ interests at the forefront.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the nation’s largest day laborer network, serves low-wage and often immigrant workers in the country. Its four-day convention kicked off Thursday.

Last August, NDLON and the AFL-CIO formed a partnership that allows NDLON’s member organizations and other worker centers to afiliate with AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations and to work work together on issues of workplace rights, immigration reform, worker safety and other job-related concerns. The group is holding its convention at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md.

NDLON Director Pablo Alvarado said one goal of the convention is to find ways to reshape the debate on immigration–a debate that is growing increasingly contentious and hostile–and another is to to ensure the day laborer community has a voice in the debate.

"We need to build bridges, not walls, within our communities," Alvarado said. "We will not have better immigration laws until we have reframed the debate. Day laborers are experts in the failure of status quo immigration policy, and their voices and perspectives should be heard and listened to, rather than demeaned and vilified."

NDLON says while day laborers make huge contributions to their communities and to the economy, working in residential construction home care, agriculture, landscaping and many other intensive manual labor jobs, they have become targets of vigilantes, anti-immigration organizations and nativist politicians.

Since last year’s partnership agreement, the AFL-CIO has affiliated six worker centers, including one from NDLON, and several more partnerships in the works. The centers serve as grassroots mediating institutions that provide support to the communities of low-wage workers, including organizing and space where employers and day laborers can meet with trained staff to deal with workplace problems.

In addition, the two groups have worked closely on state and local enforcement of wage and hour laws, health and safety, immigrant rights and other issues.

Reprinted from the national AFL-CIO news website, http://blog.aflcio.org

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3214

DO WE REALLY WANT PEOPLE HANGING OUT IN THE STREET WAITING FOR WORK? NO WE DONT. OR HANGING OUT IN PARKING LOTS? NO WE DONT. SO I DONT REALLY CARE WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY. IF THEY ARE HERE LEGALLY THEY SHOULD SEEK EMPLOYMENT AND IF THEY ARENT.....GO HOME. I DONT SEE WHAT THERE IS TO TALK ABOUT