The following is an article that appeard in the SF Chronicle on Thursday 8-10-06.  One of the active members of the new network is the SF Day Labor Program.  Many of our shelter residents participate in that program.  -Eric Quezada

SAN FRANCISCO AFL-CIO, nonunion day laborers team up to fight for worker rights

Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 10, 2006

The AFL-CIO and a national network of day labor centers -- one of the largest of them in San Francisco -- formed a potent alliance Wednesday to influence immigration reform and fight for worker rights.

The partnership bonds two groups that historically have been at odds: The National Day Laborer Organizing Network largely represents undocumented workers and helps them find temporary jobs, usually manual labor. Many of the centers were created to offer workers a place to congregate instead of hanging out on street corners each morning looking for a day's pay.

In contrast, the AFL-CIO oversees legions of union workers whose pay and status have been established through decades of hard-fought labor battles.

National AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the effort to improve the working conditions of day laborers is "the most vibrant part of the labor movement today," even though the workers don't have formal union membership.

"Worker centers make good on the core American belief that even the shunned and excluded should and can fight back," Sweeney said during a signing ceremony in Chicago, according to a statement his union released Wednesday. "It is a moral imperative that we do everything in our power to support the work of worker centers."

In a telephone conference call after the ceremony, Sweeney sidestepped questions about aligning with workers who are not legally employable.

An immediate benefit of the largely symbolic agreement for the union could be reducing the chance that day laborers would be inclined to cross picket lines.

But its long-term impact on federal immigration policy and the faltering national labor movement could be significant, said Janice Fine, professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University.

"If organized labor is going to have a chance to rebuild, these workers are going to be essential to that rebuilding process," she added. But that's down the road, Fine said, because the structure of union membership would have to be overhauled and there would have to be a system for workers who float among various employers.

Unions represent a much larger proportion of public sector workers than private -- about 37 percent compared with 8 percent. An alliance with day laborers could give the AFL-CIO the chance for a greater footprint in the private sector again.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies and an opponent of immigration reforms that would allow illegal migrants to stay here, said the AFL-CIO's decision to align itself with day laborers runs contrary to the tradition of the union movement, which has been to restrict the supply of workers and improve the plight of those working.

"Their position now seems to be they want to make life as easy as possible for those in the country illegally," Camarota said. "Doesn't that make the problem worse by attracting more illegals and increasing the supply of labor still further?"

Attorney and organizer Renee Saucedo with the San Francisco program said the pact gives day laborers a greater voice in Washington to fight militarization at the border and restrictions on immigration proposed in a bill the Senate passed this spring and one the House of Representatives passed last year.

Saucedo noted that representatives from the AFL-CIO and the worker centers met jointly with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, in Chicago on Wednesday. Pelosi wasn't immediately available for comment Wednesday.

It was "powerful" to see the two groups united in rejecting all immigration reform legislation currently in Congress, Saucedo said.

"It's a formal way for labor to say, 'We support all workers regardless of immigration status,' " Saucedo said of the new pact. "This relationship is historic because, as an organization that represents primarily undocumented workers, we have never had a relationship with organized labor."

The agreement does not mean day laborers affiliated with the 40 centers included in the national network will be unionized. Rather, it gives national and local affiliates of both the day labor coalition and the AFL-CIO a powerful partner when lobbying for workers, officials said in the announcement.

"The growing worker center movement shows that the fight for change at work has never been as vibrant, varied and urgent," Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said in a prepared statement. "Yet the end goal remains the same: to ensure that the rights and freedoms of workers aren't reserved just for a few, but (are) extended to the many -- regardless of where you were born, the color of your skin, your gender or migratory status."