BY JON HILLSON

MINNEAPOLIS - An early morning raid by armed Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents on workers at Northern Star Co. is provoking growing anger among union members at the potato processing plant, located in an industrial neighborhood on the border between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The agents hauled 50 workers, most of them Mexican, out of the factory May 22, piled them into a bus to the National Guard armory in Hastings, and began deporting them. A second INS dragnet at the same time, in the St. Paul suburb of Cottage Grove, swept up 20 undocumented workers at Up North Plastics. In April, the INS seized 55 workers at a poultry processing factory in Cold Spring, about 60 miles from the Twin Cities.

"I'm really pissed off," one young Northern Star worker who is white said angrily. "This was wrong. They took a friend of mine, and his kids are still here."

The worker was one of scores who stopped to talk with Tom Fiske, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate, and his supporters during the change-over from first to second shift on May 24.

Some of Fiske's supporters wore bilingual sandwich board signs reading "Stop the deportations!" and "Down with the INS!" that attracted immediate attention. As bosses were alerted and came out of the plant, they were disregarded by groups of workers on the sidewalk, or in cars, who stopped, asking Fiske and his campaigners for flyers.

Many workers told Fiske their stories of what had happened in the plant. "I've only been here [at Northern Star] for a few weeks," a young Black woman explained, shaking her head, "this [raid] is kind of like slavery."

Another Black worker, like many coworkers in the Teamster organized plant, rejected the claim that "illegals" should be seized and expelled from the country. "You should be able to work where you live. You should be able to work where you want. They shouldn't do what they did to human beings, period." Several union members told socialists how the bosses set up the INS raid in the plant of 450 workers, 250 of whom are Latino and 100 Black.

On May 21, management posted a sign for a "mandatory" meeting to test fire drill procedures between midnight and first shift changes the next day. "They tricked us," a young Mexican worker said. "They got us into the lunchroom, and they locked the doors. The INS came in and began to ask people where they were born. They asked for papers."

The immigration cops surrounded the plant as well. Several workers reported the agents pushed and shoved the men and women they identified as "illegal," placing plastic handcuffs on their wrists.

"I'm very upset," a young Chicana from Texas said. "I used to think they [employers] were pretty nice, but not any more."

Frictions between a layer of workers and foremen had been running high in the plant. "Many workers saw a foreman hit a Mexican worker," José explained. "They shout at you if you don't speak English, they tell you to hurry up all the time. It's unjust."

A white foreman hit a Black worker recently, Tyron noted. Many workers speak of various other abuses. "You work overtime, maybe they pay, maybe they don't," a young Asian worker explained.

A handful of workers said they thought "illegals" should be deported. "What does it mean to be `illegal?' That's just the bosses term for dividing us up so they can do what they want to us," SWP candidate Fiske, a machine operator and member of the International Association of Machinists, replied. "When the boss has a way to divide us, arrest some of us, take us away, how are we going to be able to fight for our rights?"

In a bilingual statement circulated at the factory, Fiske blasted the employers for "layoffs and downsizing" and called on the unions to "lead a real fight to defend immigrant workers," and "demand jobs for all, a massive public works program to build hospitals, schools, daycare centers, roads, and other services to provide work for everyone who wants it."

José Aravena contributed to this article.  
 
 
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