Calero spoke to two groups of 20-30 unionists at both lunch breaks. Workers came outside the factory to welcome Calero and learn more about his victory, which they had helped win.

An associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and staff writer for the Militant, Calero won a court ruling in May that he is “non-deportable,” after a six-month effort by the INS to send him back to his native Nicaragua. The government based its exclusion effort on a minor plea-bargain conviction for selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover cop 15 years ago, while Calero was in high school, which immigration authorities waived when they granted him permanent residency.

Strikers first learned of this anti-deportation fight while on picket duty shortly after Calero’s arrest last December. Dozens signed petitions right away to get him out of detention. After his release, Calero came to south Florida and visited the picket line in January, speaking to a gathering of 75 workers.

This time, Calero was introduced by union organizer Maria Revelles. He spoke in Spanish and his remarks were translated into Creole. The union presented him with a red UNITE T-shirt. Calero also visited the union office across the street to help blow up helium balloons for the celebration of the recent NLRB ruling awarding back pay to many workers who were locked out by the company one year ago and three who had been fired. Workers released hundreds of balloons inside the plant.

Later that night Calero spoke at a meeting of Veye Yo, a Haitian rights organization, in nearby Miami. About 65 people attended, most of them Haitian. The meeting was hosted by Veye Yo leader Tony Jeanthenor, who also translated Calero’s remarks into Creole. Calero pointed to the experiences of workers at Point Blank and at Tyson Foods in Jefferson, Wisconsin, as examples of how workers are “learning rapidly to unite.”

“Your rights have been violated,” one participant told Calero in the discussion period. “With your experience, do you feel like this government is more a fascist dictatorship than a democracy? Look at all the Haitian immigrants in jail right now. What crime is it to come by boat to the U.S. to look for a better life?”

“One way the government tries to deepen the divisions among us is to make us look like criminals,” Calero responded, pointing to the harsher laws that put more and more workers behind bars. “But who are the real criminals? When I was in jail I met people like you and me, like we were all in a factory together. They are trying to create a layer without legal rights, without the right to counsel, subject to indefinite detention.

“This is how imperialist democracy works. This is democracy under capitalism. I don’t rule out that we will see the rise of a fascist movement. But if we lived under fascism now, we wouldn’t be here tonight, and we wouldn’t have scored the victory we did.”

“Between the Democrats and Republicans, which is worse?” another participant asked, and another followed up, “I am still not satisfied with your answer because you haven’t said how bad Bush is.” Calero said he agreed 100 percent that the current U.S. president is bad news for working people. He also outlined the bipartisan character of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. “The most important thing is to break from both,” he said. “We have to advance demands that can unify the working class and organize independently of the twin parties of the rich.”
 

A worker at the Port of Tampa said during the discussion that all port employees are now required to get security clearances. Some 12 percent have failed because they have prior felony convictions or other infractions on their records, he said. “The magnitude of the number of workers who have had contact with the criminal justice system shows that the government aims to criminalize the entire working class,” Calero said. “It’s important for the labor movement to support the demand to expunge these records. All rights should be restored once a person has served their sentence.”

Marisol, a new subscriber to Perspectiva Mundial, the magazine Calero helps edit, grew up in Puerto Rico. She came to the meeting with her husband, Mohammed. He is Tunisian and was held in prison for six months with no charges following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In response to her question about why it will take two years to try Sami Al-Arian, Calero said the stakes for the government are high. Al-Arian, who is Palestinian and a former professor at USF, is being held at the Federal Coleman Correctional Facility in solitary confinement under charges of supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. “They have nothing on Sami—nothing,” said Calero. “We must stand together to demand his release. They are trying to get us to accept strip searches, isolation, the conditions at Guantánamo, and torture. This is not about terrorism. It is aimed at every one of us.”

A lively informal exchange took place in Spanish after the meeting that included a group of workers from Plant City. Discussion centered on how to fight against intolerable working conditions. A woman who works at a tomato packing plant with hundreds of others was anxious to hear how workers at Dakota Premium Foods in Minnesota were able to win union recognition and improve their conditions at work. Prior to joining the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial staff, Calero worked at Dakota and was part of the struggle to bring in the union.
 

“The victory would not have been possible without the efforts of my party, the Socialist Workers Party,” Calero said. By understanding the mood of resistance to attacks on wages and living conditions meted out by the bosses, the SWP was able to collaborate with many others in drawing on the wide support from workers, farmers, and other defenders of democratic rights.

Susan LaMont thanked Calero’s many supporters on behalf of the Birmingham SWP. “There is an old saying in the labor movement,” LaMont said. “‘An injury to one is an injury to all.’ This simple but profound statement of the life-and-death necessity for solidarity among workers is the underlying principle that the Socialist Workers Party believes in and acts on in defending not only our own members, but all victims of capitalist injustice.”

The meeting was attended by 20 people, including members of the United Mine Workers of America, one of whom brought hi s neighbor; two young workers from Argentina and Peru; and others.

“The bosses and government use the attacks on immigrant workers to deepen the divisions among working people and cripple our ability to fight back,” Calero said. “They try to split us, to crush us, to keep us from fighting together—blame the immigrant workers for the crisis, the single moms, the ‘deadbeat’ dads, the old people living too long. Never their system.

“In the name of ‘fighting terrorism,’ the rulers are targeting the whole working class,” Calero said. “But there is resistance among workers and immigrants are often in the lead.

“What is the most important contribution immigrant workers bring to this country?” Calero asked. “It’s not that they do some of the hardest jobs or that they pay taxes, which they do. It’s their willingness to fight. For that reason we say, the more the better!”

“How can we heal the divisions in the working class that you talked about?” asked Ralph Timberlake, a postal worker who drove an hour and a half from Huntsville, Alabama, to attend the event.

“Unemployment is a major weapon the rulers have to keep us fighting each other,” Calero said. “Instead of blaming each other, we have to advance demands like 30 hours of work for 40 hours pay and public works programs to spread around available jobs and fix badly deteriorating infrastructure. These kind of demands can help unite us by fighting for jobs for all.”

Glenn Davis, a UMWA member who works at a nearby mine where a massive layoff just occurred, joined the discussion. “In the past, big business kept Blacks and poor whites divided. Now it seems like Black and Latino workers will start fighting among each other.”

“We have to be confident that workers can see it is in their interests to fight together,” Calero said. “We have to explain how racism keeps us from moving forward together. A few decades ago there was Jim Crow segregation in the South, but Black workers and farmers led a movement that had a huge impact on the whole class that helped unite us.”

In response to a comment questioning whether much had in fact changed since the civil rights era, Calero said, “Don’t underestimate the advances our class has made—these were won with sweat and blood. We can’t forget these lessons and what they mean for the present.”

“We will make gains and take concessions—back and forth—as long as capitalism exists,” he said. “That’s why we must get rid of the system altogether. ”

The discussion drew to a close only when the library started turning off the lights. More than $200 was donated to the Political Rights Defense Fund, which backed Calero’s defense effort.

The next day, Calero was interviewed by ¡Radio Que Buena! Later he met with two organizers from United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 271, who are involved in an organizing drive in the area. A majority of carpenters at the five construction companies the union is trying to organize are immigrant workers from Mexico. “I was interested in the Calero case,” said organizer Larry Hodge, “because the example helps immigrant workers we are trying to organize see for themselves that you can fight the establishment and win.”
 

At the A.M. Briggs meatpacking plant in D.C. the following day, Calero had similar discussions with workers. One member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 stayed around for more than a half hour to discuss with Calero how to strengthen the union.

At Linens of the Week laundry, Calero and his supporters heard from workers about their successful fight for representation by UNITE. The 250 laundry workers recently ratified their first union contract. It included pay raises, improvements in job safety, and health-care benefits. Several workers said the struggle now continues to enforce the contract.

Calero pointed to the demonstration the day before at the Capitol by 30 day laborers fighting for a minimum daily wage, overtime pay, and company-provided health and safety equipment. According to the immigrant rights group Casa de Maryland, there are 50,000 day laborers in the Washington, D.C. area.

“This is another example of how more and more immigrant workers are fighting back,” Calero said. “It’s important to support them.”

While here, Calero also met with a dozen supporters of his campaign against deportation at Café Mawonaj. He was introduced by Norberto Martínez, a paralegal with the Central American Resource Center, who was part of Calero’s local defense committee.

Some $250 was collected and supporters pledged to double that amount to ensure that all outstanding bills of the Calero Defense Committee are met in full.

Reporters from one of the area’s Spanish-language newspapers, El Pregonero, stayed afterwards to interview Calero. Calero also discussed the lessons of his fight with several Howard University students from Afro-Latinos Making Alliances, who have been following his fight in the Militant.

Calero was also interviewed by El Tiempo Latino, the Washington Hispanic, and the Pacifica Radio program, “Pueblos sin Fronteras.”