These developments are rooted in the way the U.S. capitalists have set about boosting their profitability over the last decade and a half. They have achieved increased productivity not by the introduction of new technology and computerization, as is often claimed, but by a wide-ranging assault on the workforce. Intensification of labor through faster line speeds, longer hours, and increased workloads imposed on workers are what their temporary gains are built on. Although the bosses have scored notable successes over their competitors in Europe and Japan over the last two decades, they will continue driving on this course in the certain knowledge that their rivals are already moving to close the gap through the same methods.

A key component of the employers' drive has been to draw millions of workers from Latin America and elsewhere into factories and plants, as they impose brutal conditions on the job and cut wages. The workers' "illegal" or "undocumented" status, they calculated, would make them accept whatever the bosses dish out. And should immigrants need reminding of their rightless position, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, every other kind of police, and the courts were close at hand. This is the purpose of these cops and the laws they enforce: to terrorize a section of the working class, separate them off from other working people, and thereby weaken our class as a whole.

The bosses are now running up against the other consequences of this setup. Through their very successes, they have brought into being a working class in this country that is more international, that has more varied political experiences, and that better knows the scope and brutality of U.S. imperialism.

The workers from Somalia--a nation occupied by U.S. troops in 1993 and 1994--who helped lead the flying pickets in the Minneapolis hotel workers' strike exemplify this. So do the workers from Latin America who came to the rescue of May Day this year, and helped pump new life into the demonstrations in the United States on this international workers' holiday.

Immigrant and native-born workers are driven toward industrial and political action by exactly the same causes. The increase in working-class resistance that we see today--including the organizing drives that are starting to gain momentum--is not an option for the workers involved. The bosses' drive to wring more profits from our labor power is forcing workers to act to defend our very lives, limbs, and humanity.

The role of immigrant workers in the current struggles shows that what short-term success the bosses have can also bring them new and bigger problems. In protests and strike actions organized by meat packers in the Midwest, by janitors and truck drivers across the country, home builders in Washington State, and aluminum window workers in Florida, immigrant workers are standing up for the union, fighting for better contracts, and putting their stamp on these struggles.

This strengthens the battles of all unionists here and helps prepare the labor movement to defend itself and all working people against the demagogy of rightist politicians who will scapegoat immigrants--along with Blacks, women, and the political vanguard of the working class--and incite violent attacks on them as part of their assaults on the labor movement. For example, ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan, running for U.S. president and well on the road to capturing the Reform Party nomination, calls for immigration to be slowed so that "hyphenated" Americans can be "assimilated."

These kinds of political questions are being posed in other countries as well, especially the imperialist powers. Marchers in London on June 24 called on the British government to repeal its vicious asylum and immigration laws. One contingent summed up just what all working people should celebrate and embrace: "Refugees have the right, here to stay, here to fight."

All activists in the labor movement should fight to win their union to back these crucial struggles today, demand equal rights for immigrants, and an end to all harassment, intimidation, threats, and deportations by the INS and police agencies carried out against these workers.  
 
 
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