Vol. 71/No. 25      June 25, 2007

His assertions echo some of the main arguments the ruling class uses to keep the working class divided in order to maintain the capitalist profit system. Such arguments are often repeated by many working people—including African Americans and other U.S.-born workers, as well as immigrants who have become U.S. residents.

The ruling billionaire families work overtime to pit workers against each other—employed vs. unemployed, skilled vs. unskilled, men vs. women, white vs. Black, native-born vs. foreign-born, the list goes on.

An ongoing influx of immigrant labor does increase this competition. It does allow the bosses to push down wages for all and to cut jobs, unless the labor movement fights to build solidarity, extend unionization, and champion the demands of all sections of the working class, especially the most exploited.

To improve their conditions workers living in Mexico must fight their main enemy—the exploiting classes in Mexico itself. Unlike the United States, however, and like most of the world, Mexico is a semicolonial country. The wealth toilers in Mexico produce is plundered not only by the native capitalists but by financial institutions and monopolies based in the imperialist countries, largely through the slavery of the foreign debt.

Over the past decade imperialist powers, especially Washington, have intensified the brutal extraction of superprofits from the labor and resources of the semicolonial world—Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Unlivable conditions thus created drive millions to opt to cross the border, or sail across the ocean, to be able to feed themselves and their families.

Contrary to Coleman’s assertion, it is not the Republicans or George Bush alone who have fostered these policies. They have been defended and advanced in the eight years of the Clinton administration and by Democratic Party politicians today.

This bipartisan offensive has also targeted the unions in the United States, as the bosses drive down wages, speed up production, and extend the working day, work week, work year, and working life. They have relied on repressive measures by the government to heighten insecurity among immigrant workers, hoping to maintain a superexploitable labor pool and keep immigrant workers from joining labor and social struggles.

In spite of this, far from “riding the shirt tail” of the native-born working class, as Coleman says, immigrant workers, including many of the undocumented, have fought and set an example for American labor.

At the Co-Op Mine in Huntington, Utah, 75 coal miners, a majority born in Mexico, began a battle in 2003 for a union. They held firm on the picket line for 10 months, reached out broadly for solidarity, and waged a militant and unified fight. This battle inspired many U.S.-born workers and showed the road forward for the miners’ union in the West and beyond.

The front-page article in this issue on the union victory at PM Beef in Minnesota also shows this trend.

As do the large May Day mobilizations the last two years demanding legalization of the undocumented, and ongoing struggles against raids and deportations.

If the labor movement chooses to turn against these workers in the name of “defending the struggling American worker,” it is choosing a death march towards becoming a narrow, privileged collection of job trusts. That course undermines solidarity and strengthens the hand of the employers to deepen their assault on the living standards of the entire working class.

Instead the battle for legalization of the undocumented points the road toward a revitalized labor movement. This is the only perspective worthy of those who want to fight against the dog-eat-dog competition, racism, and brutal exploitation that capitalism offers all workers—regardless of where they were born.
 
 
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'La migra' grabs 7 in New Jersey
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Solidarity tour held in Los Angeles for Massachusetts workers arrested by ‘la migra’
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