Vol. 71/No. 9      March 5, 2007

BY GABRIELA MOREANO  
ST. PAUL, Minnesota—The Young Socialists are part of the working-class response to recent large-scale factory raids by the U.S. immigration police.

On December 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided Swift meatpacking plants in six U.S. states. It was the largest-ever immigration sweep at a single company. Nearly 1,300 workers were arrested. Hundreds of them were subsequently deported and 220 were charged with “identity theft.”

In a similar incident, ICE agents arrested 21 workers on January 24 at the Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, for alleged immigration violations. These arrests came just two months after a walkout of 1,000 meat packers at the Tar Heel plant to protest the firing of 75 fellow workers for “false papers.” The strike forced the company to rehire the 75. Workers were then given two months to fix their immigration status, a period now expiring. The company is now threatening to fire more than 500 employees. Workers at the Tar Heel plant have been involved in efforts over the last decade to organize into the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

In response to these raids over the past two months, Young Socialists have been part of teams to meatpacking regions in Minnesota, Iowa, and North Carolina, selling the Militant at plant gates and in nearby communities, and discussing politics with workers and youth. Many of the workers we’ve met have agreed on the need to organize and fight against the bosses’ attacks. More than 1,000 workers bought copies of the Militant and about 100 subscribed in these visits.

The recent raids come at a time when the working class in this country has been strengthened, which was registered in the mass proletarian actions last spring demanding, “Legalization Now!”

On May Day last year, 2 million workers walked off the job and took to the streets to say, “We are workers, not criminals!” It was the first nationwide general strike in the history of the United States, presenting political demands on the government. The recent raids are an attempt by the ruling class to weaken the impact of those mobilizations, to intimidate immigrant and other workers from fighting for their rights.

The employers depend on undocumented workers as a cheap source of exploitable labor. They make sure immigrants keep flowing across the border, often through coyote operations the bosses organize. At the same time they seek to keep immigrants in a second-class status in order to make a greater profit through lowering wages and speeding up production for all. Current immigration laws are designed to allow the capitalists to divide the working class and keep millions deprived of basic rights.

Last year’s mass mobilizations and the response by workers to the recent raids have undercut attempts by the employers and the government to divide workers by nationality and language. Workers are refusing to be cowed, finding ways to fight, and looking to the unions and other workers for help.

The Young Socialists support the struggles of all workers to organize a union at their workplace and use it to resist the bosses’ attacks. Unions are the only tools workers have to defend themselves and to fight for better living conditions.

We also explain that the fight for immigrant rights is in the interest of all workers, as the attacks on immigrants are attacks on the working class as a whole. The Young Socialists encourages students, young workers, and others to join us in demanding: “No to raids and deportations!” “Legalize all the undocumented now!”

Ross Hogan contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Meat packers seek and get solidarity to resist impact of immigration raids  
 
 
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