Post recall failure, unions reach out to immigrants to
broaden appeal
PAT SCHNEIDER | The Capital Times |
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No one was watching when a bus-load of striking factory
workers pulled up early on a Sunday morning in July
outside the vast Costco store on the far reaches of
Middleton. A couple of dozen workers from Palermo's
Pizza in Milwaukee, joined by local union members and
activist students from a national group meeting in
Madison, hoisted protest signs and began to march.

"No Justice, No Pizza" read one sign calling for a
boycott of Palermo's products, of which Costco is a
major retailer. "No Justice, No Piece" punned another.

The protesters marched in a loop on the sidewalk and
called out chants familiar to the labor movement: "The
people, united, will never be defeated." And words
closely linked to the immigrant rights movement: "Si, se
puede!" (roughly, "Yes, we can" -- originally the
rallying cry of the United Farm Workers in the 1970s).

Most of the pizza factory workers are Spanish-speaking
immigrants. They say that Palermo's called in
immigration authorities to scare them off when they
petitioned the company to organize after years of failed
efforts to improve working conditions, then replaced
striking workers.

Union members from the Madison-based South Central
Federation of Labor marched with the pizza factory
workers outside the Middleton Costco. But when it was
time for the rallying cries, it was a Milwaukee public
school teacher who took the microphone to talk about how
important the cause of these low-wage immigrant workers
is to organized labor.

"Some people are saying the labor movement is dead --
with this, it is being reborn," said Kim Schroeder, vice
president of the Milwaukee Teachers' Education
Association, whose members had been joining some
striking workers outside the pizza factory on picket
lines on that city's south side. Schroeder pledged the
buying power of his 7,000-member union to the national
boycott sought by the striking Palermo's workers.

"In the past year, I've been labeled a 'union thug,'"
Schroeder said, invoking a conservative slur from the
long, bitter battle over collective bargaining rights
for Wisconsin public employees that Gov. Scott Walker
launched in 2011.

Walker's recall election in June was viewed nationally
as a bellwether of overall union clout as its collective
membership declines. In the wake of Walker's victory --
which one exit poll said was supported by 38 percent of
union households -- organized labor is redoubling its
efforts to support workers "past the walls of our union
halls," as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka put it in a
recent speech.

Unions are scrambling, too, to recapture the kind of
thrilling call to action exemplified in the 1979 movie
"Norma Rae," a fictionalized telling of the real life
story of organizing cotton mill workers in South
Carolina. When the title character jumps up on her work
table to silently display a scrawled cardboard "UNION"
sign, and her co-workers turn off their machines one by
one until the din of the factory is silenced -- well,
Sally Field won an Oscar for her portrayal of Norma Rae.

*  *  *  *

Could the uprising of the feisty pizza workers from
Milwaukee hold the same power to arouse workers -- and
sway a watchful public -- as that star turn from the
1970s?

Despite the relatively small size of the company, the
strike that began on June 1 has attracted nationwide
attention. Within two weeks of the picketing in
Middleton, actions were staged in 11 cities outside
Costco stores, asking the company not to stock Palermo's
products.

Then Trumka endorsed a national boycott on Palermo's
products. Last week, informational picketing outside
Costco stores was temporarily suspended after company
executives reportedly approached Trumka about finding a
way for the company to make a positive contribution to
the Palermo's situation.

Such a grass-roots effort to exercise the right under
law to organize -- without assistance from an existing
labor union -- is the kind of thing you don't see much
anymore, said Armando Ibarra, an assistant professor at
the School for Workers at the University of
Wisconsin-Extension. "It's inspiring," he told me.

Union leaders are quick to say that the conditions that
galvanized the immigrant workers at Palermo's Pizza are
the same as those that confront many low-wage workers.
"A lot of workers now are being treated poorly, paid
very little and have absolutely no voice in the
workplace," local labor federation President Kevin
Gundlach told me.

But in other ways, the story of the Palermo's workers is
a uniquely immigrant story, and it lends credence to
what a number of labor scholars are saying -- that
efforts to organize by immigrant workers are on the
"leading edge" of the labor movement.

To begin with, it was a demand by Palermo's management
that some 75 workers provide proof of their Social
Security numbers -- in response to an audit of work
documents by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement --
and the subsequent firing of those workers that touched
off the strike. After Palermo's workers filed an unfair
labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations
Board, ICE suspended its audit at the plant, a move
labor leaders and scholars say is virtually unheard of.

Any vote on a union has been delayed while the labor
relations board investigates the workers' charge.

Palermo's officials deny that there is any connection
between the audit and the union drive, and the
government won't even confirm that there was an audit.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson last week said the
agency doesn't confirm workplace audits unless its
investigations result in penalties to businesses for law
violations, but stressed that "ICE plays no role in any
ongoing labor disputes when conducting investigations
involving an employee's eligibility to work lawfully in
the United States."

In order not to conflict with investigations of labor
disputes, "in rare cases, ICE may temporarily suspend an
ongoing audit," the statement says.

But labor activists say that threats of an ICE audit --
and the accompanying specter of deportation for workers
who can't prove they are authorized to work in the
United States -- is a tactic commonly used by employers
to thwart union drives.

The threat of immigration audits came up during
organizing drives of janitorial and laundry workers in
Madison in the mid-2000s, said Patrick Hickey, director
of the Workers' Rights Center in Madison. Threats
regarding workers' authorization status also crop up
when workers who are not unionized file complaints for
unpaid wages, discrimination or unsafe conditions with
labor law regulatory agencies, Hickey says, despite the
fact that state and federal labor laws protect workers
regardless of their immigration status.

"ICED OUT," a 2009 report by the AFL-CIO, declared that
a "single-minded focus on immigration enforcement
without regard to violations of workplace laws has
enabled employers with rampant labor and employment
violations to profit by employing workers who are
terrified to complain ... or demand the right to bargain
collectively."

This is true, the report says, despite a series of U.S.
Supreme Court decisions stretching back to 1984 that
establish that the use of worker immigration status to
retaliate for organizing activity violates the National
Labor Relations Act.

*  *  *  *

Perhaps in part because of their unique vulnerability to
retaliation for organizing activities, immigrant workers
often are clustered in low-paying jobs that in turn
carry plenty of incentive to try to organize.

Labor scholars like Frank Emspak, an emeritus professor
at the School for Workers, say the story of organized
labor has traditionally been the story of immigrants.

"In the last century, who was organizing? It was
immigrant steel workers, immigrant coal miners, getting
together when there was no labor law," he said.

Beyond that, the nature of the immigrant experience
itself has resulted in a disproportionate amount of
recent organizing activity taking place in workplaces
where immigrants dominate, says labor scholar Ruth
Milkman, a professor of sociology at the City University
of New York Graduate Center.

Immigrant workers are people who have taken the
ambitious step of pulling up roots to move to another
country to advance themselves economically, Milkman
pointed out, making them more motivated than other
workers to organize to protect the prospect of a better
life.

In addition, new arrivals typically depend on others
from their home country for assistance to help them
survive, which often creates the tight social networks
that facilitate workplace organizing, Milkman said.

Although in the last half of the 20th century an
anti-immigrant sentiment developed in organized labor --
which included Cesar Chavez, the famous organizer who
led historic lettuce and grape boycotts in support of
U.S.-born farm workers -- by the turn of the 21st
century, unions were embracing immigrant workers as key
players in what had become an embattled future.

Then began another wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that
gave rise to state laws in Arizona and elsewhere that
critics say jeopardize basic civil rights.

Despite that sentiment, the American public supports the
rights of immigrant workers, Christian Sweeney, deputy
organizing director for the AFL-CIO, told me.

"People know that immigrants are vulnerable and
struggle, and that regardless of their status, workers
are workers," Sweeney said. "Lots of immigrant workers
are documented to work, and it's important for the
general public to realize that when any worker --
regardless of status -- gets bullied, it affects all of
us. If the person working alongside you doesn't get to
exercise his rights, you don't get to exercise your
rights."

*  *  *  *

It was an immigrant rights group -- Voces de la Frontera,
headquartered in Milwaukee -- that the Palermo's workers
turned to several years ago for help with their labor
troubles. The nonprofit agency helped workers file a
charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging
that Palermo's management interfered with, discriminated
against, retaliated against and refused to bargain with
workers who were organizing as the independent Palermo
Workers Union.

Voces also has spread the word about the workers'
campaign, notifying media outlets of planned actions and
coordinating efforts with non-union groups to build
support for their efforts.

A campaign asking Costco to drop Palermo's products
delivered a reported 4,000 emails to executives there.
Costco Wholesale Corp. executives have not responded to
phone calls seeking comment on the workers' plea to stop
carrying frozen pizza marketed under the Palermo's and
"Kirkland" labels.

The protest at Costco in Middleton last month was timed
to coordinate with a national conference in Madison of
the activist United States Student Association. Members
of that group pledged to bring news and support for the
emerging boycott back to their hometowns. Many members
of the student organization are first-generation
Americans, outgoing President Victor Sanchez told the
protesters. "We understand the struggles of our
parents."

Cesar Hernandez, a six-year Palermo's employee, told me
through an interpreter about the workers' action. "We're
asking people to stop supporting this company that is
treating us poorly."

He told me that part of his right index finger was
nearly severed in 2007 when it was caught in a packaging
machine that the company failed to fix despite
complaints.

"My hand was caught and the machine came down and cut
off about one-third of my finger," Hernandez said. The
finger was reattached at a hospital, but Hernandez said
he was back on the production line after two days. "They
said I had to go back to work."

Palermo's officials declined to respond to Hernandez's
claim of injury, but records from the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration include two recent
violations by Palermo's in similar incidents. A 2010
citation for machinery that failed to protect against
amputation carried the maximum fine of $7,000; a 2008
citation for a similar violation resulted in a $4,500
fine.

Palermo's officials declined to be interviewed for this
story in general, but a statement emailed to me in
response to a request for an interview on the company's
labor issues quotes director of marketing Chris
Dreselhuys as saying that the company merely "cooperated
with ICE and obeyed the law" after ICE found some
workers ineligible to work. Dreselhuys denied that there
is any labor dispute and said the company welcomes a
vote on unionization as soon as possible.

"Although recent efforts by Voces de la Frontera will
delay the union vote and undermine our employees' desire
to be heard, we will continue to cooperate with the
investigation and the National Labor Relations Board to
help ensure that a resolution is reached that reflects
the will of our employees."

Dreselhuys called the boycott attempt "the latest tactic
designed to harm a company that for nearly a
half-century has demonstrated an unwavering commitment
to its multi-cultural workforce, its customers, and the
community."

The decision to strike was solely that of the workers,
Voces executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told
me. "Anyone with a lick of sense would know that workers
and their families would not make that decision
lightly," she said.

As many as 150 workers went out on strike in June, she
says, and about 90 continue to strike against the
company.

Neumann-Ortiz said workers took action after years of
failed efforts to improve wages and working conditions,
including a discriminatory lack of respect for Latino
workers and a sick day policy that forced ailing workers
to stay on the job, jeopardizing not only the health of
workers, but also the health of those who consume
Palermo's products.

*  *  *  *

In Wisconsin, labor leaders came away from the
exhilarating, but ultimately sobering, experience of the
"Wisconsin uprising" against Walker with the lesson that
"everyone has to have everybody's back when it comes to
solidarity," David Poklinkoski, president of the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local
2304 and head of outreach for the South Central
Federation of Labor, told me.

The emerging Wisconsin Solidarity and Support Network
could prove to be a national model, he said. The effort
already is lending support to Palermo's workers, raising
about $2,000 for their strike fund. The local labor
federation, the AFL-CIO, and other labor groups are
planning for a national day of action in support of
Palermo's workers on Saturday, Aug. 25.

The labor federation also is working to develop a
coalition with local community organizations to work on
issues that affect everybody, organized labor or not,
Poklinkoski said, explaining that the perception of
organized labor as an integral part of the community has
eroded in recent decades as union membership has
dropped.

Union membership nationwide has fallen from a high of
25.5 percent of all workers in 1953, to 18.7 percent in
1979 when "Norma Rae" hit movie theater screens, to a
seven-decade low of 11.8 percent in 2011, according to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"The labor movement laid the foundation for the wages,
benefits and standard of living everyone enjoys. But now
we've got people trying to jackhammer that foundation
out of existence," Poklinkoski said.

The labor federation's Gundlach said unions need to
operate now in a way that recognizes how civil rights,
human rights and labor rights are interconnected. "These
are all real issues for workers, not just catchphrases,"
he said.

The labor agenda has always been a broad one, says the
AFL-CIO's Sweeney, pointing to connections between labor
and the civil rights and consumer protection movements.
"It's always been about more than an extra nickel in the
paycheck."

Voces' Neumann-Ortiz sees potential for a convergence of
labor interests in the fact that 30 percent of the jobs
created in the United States in the past 30 years are
low-wage, providing great potential for solidarity
between immigrants and other low-wage workers. In the
past several years, organized workers once considered
"professionals" also are under attack, so "there is
greater opportunity for solidarity between them and
immigrant workers," she says.

Hickey of the Workers' Rights Center, a former labor
organizer, believes that immigrant workers -- who often
have the hardest and most dangerous occupations -- will
continue to play an important role in labor issues,
inside and outside of unions. "But if the labor movement
expects to return to significance, it needs to find a
way to become relevant to the broader workforce --
white-collar workers, high-tech workers, retail
workers," he says.

Despite antipathy toward immigrants in some quarters,
immigrant workers can help labor regain lost ground,
said the City University of New York's Milkman,
especially with the assistance of rights organizations
that are deft in influencing media coverage. By working
to remove the lack of legal status -- the primary barrier
to economic advancement for immigrant workers -- these
organizations touch on fundamental issues that resonate
with the general public.

"If you win the hearts and minds of the public, it can
make a difference," Milkman said.

And low-wage immigrant workers, unlike the Wisconsin
public workers who grabbed national headlines for the
past year-and-a-half, are unlikely -- however wrongly --
to be dismissed as whiners who have it better than a lot
of other workers, she said. "There may be more public
sympathy for these workers -- there's no envy factor."

*  *  *  *

Outside the Middleton Costco late last month, passersby
began honking support for the picketers as traffic
picked up and shoppers pulled into the store's huge
parking lot.

"Unions are out of vogue," Wisconsin state worker Carmen
Clark of Madison told me when I asked her to leave the
picket line for a minute to talk. "Their needs are our
needs," Clark said of immigrant workers, pointing to the
vast inequities in wealth between the "1 percent" and
everyone else as the source of economic problems today.
The solution, she said, is bringing all workers up to
the standard that long-organized workers enjoy.

Ibarra of the School for Workers told me that one reason
that the public may have soured on unions is that people
forget that whatever benefits organized workers have,
they worked to get them. "If you have a pension or
decent health care, it's because you are part of a
collective that sat down with employers and negotiated
them."

That's why the story of the gutsy Palermo's workers
holds so much potential, Ibarra said. "Even if they are
not victorious, they can inspire people in other
workplaces."

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