Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) officials cynically claim they are simply enforcing the law. They hypocritically declare they are going after companies like Wal-Mart that knowingly exploit immigrant labor to make money.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The targets here are the workers and the union.

Immigration authorities have acknowledged they were snooping for years prior to these sweeps. They claim to have wiretaps of conversations between Wal-Mart executives, managers, and contractors showing the bosses had direct knowledge of the immigration status of their employees. None of the Wal-Mart executives are in jail, though, nor is it likely they will be indicted. It is only hundreds of workers who have been arrested and face deportation.

Moreover, la migra apparently knew for at least two years that many undocumented workers were being employed by Wal-Mart. They are arrested now, though, in the middle of efforts by the UFCW to organize Wal-Mart workers. These renewed union-organizing efforts come after a majority of meat cutters at a Wal-Mart store in Texas voted to be represented by the UFCW in early 2000 and the company refused to recognize the union. The retail giant has gone out of its way to block unionizing efforts by firing union supporters and other intimidation tactics.

The anti-worker laws BICE says it is enforcing with the Wal-Mart raids are not intended to stem “illegal” immigration nor to stop the superexploitation of undocumented workers. These laws are always enforced selectively to scare workers without a green card away from organizing into unions or defending basic rights as human beings. The government in Washington, which represents the interests of the wealthy, is working hand-in-glove with the employers to safeguard the system of wage slavery.

Wal-Mart executives claim to have had no knowledge of the undocumented status of the workers arrested because the majority of them were employed by contractors. These middlemen are a vital part of the vast network maintained by the capitalists to provide them with a steady source of cheap labor. It begins with the coyotes who are paid to seek workers out in Mexico and bring them into the United States, often at enormous fees and under life-threatening conditions of transport for the workers.

The contractors provide companies like Wal-Mart with a thin veneer of cover from responsibility for the low wages and deplorable conditions of work many immigrants are subjected to—like working for months without a single day off . When faced with a unionization effort, the bosses often claim the workers are “independent contractors,” not employees. The employers will continue to use contractors in this fashion against broader layers of the working class.

Working people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, Asia, and increasingly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics are being driven to immigrate due to the world capitalist crisis that has particularly devastating effects in these regions. Some 17 million people were unemployed in Latin America at the end of 2002. The jobless rate in Argentina topped 21 percent. In Uruguay and Venezuela unemployment exceeded 15 percent. Nepal led Asia with 47 percent joblessness. In some African countries more than half the population is unemployed.

This immigration, however, has strengthened the working class in the United States and other imperialist countries. Not only at Wal-Mart, but in plants, mines, and mills across the country immigrants are a growing component of vanguard workers fighting to organize unions as an effective tool to resist the bosses’ offensive. Through these experiences, a growing number of working people—regardless of their citizenship or immigration status—recognize that the struggle to defend the rights of immigrants is a necessary part of defending our class against the employer attacks on our jobs, wages, conditions of work, and social gains. A strong example of this is the solid backing by the United Mine Workers of America for the fight by the Co-op coal miners in Utah—in their majority immigrants from Mexico—to beat back the company lockout and return to work with the union.

The labor movement should demand: Stop the workplace raids and deportations now!
 
 
Related articles:
La migra raids Wal-Mart; target is workers, union  
 
 
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