Organize! Unionize! No deportations!

We’re all Americans, we’re all in this together,” say the bosses, their news media and their politicians — from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton — when they want us to accept concessions, supposedly to “save American jobs,” or to give up democratic rights to “fight terrorism,” or to go fight their wars.

But when workers stand up for higher wages and safer work conditions, when working people of different nationalities join protests against police brutality, or begin to chafe at government intrusion into our lives, all of a sudden the “we” disappears.

Instead, the bosses invent a “white working class” who they claim are mired in despair, addicted to Oxycontin and racist toward Blacks and Latinos. They pit men against women, Black against Caucasian, native-born against foreign-born, employed against unemployed, young against old.

There are two Americas: the America of the ruling capitalist families and the America of working people. But there is just one working class — with different skin colors and speaking a variety of languages.

As the world capitalist economic and social crisis intensifies, the bosses use every division they can to increase competition among workers and drive down our wages. The only way to counteract this is to organize the unorganized. It’s more important than ever today when less than 7 percent of private sector workers are organized in unions.

To increase these divisions — and keep us from seeing that capitalism is the source of our problems — they label our immigrant brothers and sisters as “illegal aliens.” In an editorial in the Militant two weeks ago, we called for “legalizing” undocumented immigrants — a term we have not used for several years, and will not use again.

In the eyes of the capitalist rulers all workers are outlaws. Isn’t that how the cops view African-American youth they stop and frisk? Isn’t that how they treat “felons” who are denied the right to vote? Isn’t that how the bosses view workers on strike who refuse to go back until they win a better contract?

The Socialist Workers Party will never ask to see your papers. Every union and organization of the working class should say: “We don’t care what language you speak, what side of the border you were born on or whether you did time in prison. We don’t care if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or no religion. Let’s join together and stand up to the bosses and their parties.”

This is a life-or-death question for the working class and the unions. Stop deportations and all other measures such as E-verify that are directed at immigrant workers and that divide the working class! Release our fellow workers who are in prison for not having immigration papers or work permits! Organize! Unionize!

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