Privacy:
Look for the Union Label
by Wendy
McElroy
In 1986, the AFL-CIO backed the Immigration Reform and Control
Act (IRCA) and it became a crime for a worker without proper
documents to hold a job in America. Now AFL-CIO Secretary
Treasurer Richard Trumka proclaims, "we are all
illegals...in the eyes of Wall St." Now powerful unions,
such as UNITE (garment workers), demand the repeal of the IRCA.
The new tack of Big Labor may unintentionally halt a violation
of privacy so profound that the notoriously invasive Social
Security Administration has called it "just not right."
SSA representative Cathy Noe explains, "[T]hey wanted to
hand us a list of names of people working at a business. It would
mean going through the files of law-abiding workers." 'It'
is Operation Vanguard. 'They' are the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. And a massive fishing expedition is
underway.
Employers already file an I-9 that meticulously records the
documentation of each employee, but the forms are no longer
satisfactory proof of "employment eligibility." Records
can lie. The INS knows this because its own database is a tangle
of inaccuracies. Thus, in late '99, the INS subpoenaed the
employment/personnel records of all meatpacking plants in
Nebraska. These were cross-referenced against SSA and other
government databases, from the IRS to the federal Bureau of Land
Management. Employees with 'discrepancies' were scheduled to be
interviewed by the INS.
Hearing INS horror stories and fearing all governments, many
workers -- illegal and not -- simply left their employment.
During one segment of Operation Vanguard, 2,149 of 3,135 workers
quit rather than be interviewed: they probably shifted to jobs of
lesser quality. Of those who interviewed, 34 were arrested.
One or two privacy advocates grumbled about background checks
being conducted without grounds for suspicion. Josh Bernstein, a
senior policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center
warned about establishing a precedent.
"The government is flexing its muscles," he said,
"trying to see what it can do about this collection of
information that is now available on everyone." But the
victims were immigrants, not Americans. Without sufficiently
strong opposition, the INS pressed on with plans to expand
Operation Vanguard nationally. Indeed, it is considering the use
of private detective agencies to run the background checks:
private enterprise is not burdened by the same constraints as
government.
Now an opponent with clout has arisen. The AFL-CIO is a voting
block upon which the Democratic Party rests and Big Labor has
decided that immigrant workers are its constituents after all.
Not that it cares about privacy. Or about the rights of
undocumented workers. The AFL-CIO wants to preserve its own
power. And Operation Vanguard has become an effective anti-Union
weapon wielded by employers.
Consider two examples. When employees at a garment factory in
California joined UNITE, foreign-born 'agitators' were required
to produce their documents repeatedly for verification. The
employer could easily justify this harassment: he could be fined
from $100 to $1000 for clerical errors in paperwork. Union
support declined dramatically. During a March sweep in the Yakima
Valley of Washington State, the INS ordered thirteen
apple-packing houses to fire 1,700 workers for
"discrepancies" -- real or not. The Valley had been the
focus of intense organizing by the Teamsters. In one sweep, the
rank-and-file leadership was decimated and three years of
unionizing efforts destroyed.
"Immigration law is a tool of the employers,"
declared Cristina Vazquez of UNITE, "and the INS has helped
them." Workers' rights advocates have reason to worry.
Employers are being used as enforcement "agents" by the
INS. For example, to verify 'new hires' many employers are now
authorized to access INS and Social Security databases.
Yet, despite the new muscle to union-bust, many employers
dislike Operation Vanguard. Low employment rates nationwide mean
that unattractive jobs are difficult to fill. In Nebraska, the
governor and congressmen complained vigorously about the
intrusion into meatpacking plants: slow slaughter lines were
depressing farm profits statewide. Political pressure is being
exerted on the INS to operate in a manner that does not disrupt
business.
This has led to the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and
Security Act of 1999. The Act will give legal status to
undocumented farm workers if they agree to labor for five years
before obtaining residency papers. Using the words 'legalized
slavery,' critics recall the bracero program of 1942-1964. For
over two decades, farm workers were transported from Mexico to
work in barbaric conditions and for low wages in American fields.
At the expiration of their contracts -- written in English, which
few laborers could read -- or at the employer's whim, the workers
were shipped home.
In short, the AFL-CIO's support of IRCA has strengthened union
busting and facilitated the return of indentured servitude to
American farms. Meanwhile, Unions continue to decline. In the
50's, 35 percent of U.S. workers belonged to a union. Today, the
percentage is closer to fourteen. With one in ten workers being
foreign born, Big Labor has come to a tardy conclusion: immigrant
labor needs union representation.
Eliseo Medina, vice-president of the Service Employees union
explains, "I am...convinced that as the labor movement is
the best hope for immigrants, so are immigrants the best hope of
the labor movement."
Free market economists speak of unintentional consequences.
These are the unpredictable results of actions taken to reach
other goals. As the AFL-CIO and the INS prepare to make alphabet
soup of each other, they may unintentionally make the privacy
rights of American workers safer.
Ring the bell and let the fight begin.
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