[Marxism] Undocumented workers fight for trade union recognition

[Louis Proyect]

NY Times, September 1, 2008
Meatpacker in Brooklyn Challenges a Union Vote
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Agriprocessors, the Brooklyn-based company that is the nation's 
largest kosher meat producer, is well known for the labor troubles at 
its meatpacking plant in Iowa — federal agents detained 389 of its 
workers as illegal immigrants in May, and labor officials in Iowa 
have accused it of employing 57 under-age workers.

But Agriprocessors is also having labor troubles closer to home, with 
the company asking the United States Supreme Court to overturn a vote 
to unionize at its distribution center along the Brooklyn waterfront.

If successful, the company's appeal could have repercussions at 
companies across the country: it is trying to persuade the Supreme 
Court to rule that illegal immigrants do not have the right to join 
labor unions.

In September 2005, the company's Brooklyn employees voted 15 to 5 to 
unionize, with one ballot challenged. The workers, most of them 
immigrants from Mexico, complained of low pay, not receiving 
time-and-a-half for overtime and not having health insurance or paid holidays.

"It was a dirty place to work, and they treated some of the workers 
real bad," said Lucilo Brito, a former Agriprocessors truck driver.

Days after the vote, Agriprocessors stunned its employees by 
announcing that it would not recognize the union because, it said, it 
had just discovered that 17 of the workers were illegal immigrants.

The National Labor Relations Board nonetheless ordered Agriprocessors 
to recognize the union, Local 342 of the United Food and Commercial 
Workers, citing a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right 
of illegal immigrants to join unions.

Agriprocessors appealed the labor board's order, with one of its 
lawyers, Richard Howard, telling the board, "This should not be a 
valid vote for representation" because "they're not documented 
workers and not allowed to work."

After Agriprocessors refused to deal with the union, 14 of the 
workers went on strike for seven weeks. The company responded by 
firing the strikers. (During the strike, union officials said, 
management hired day laborers from a nearby street corner, many of 
them illegal immigrants.)

The labor board continues to insist that Agriprocessors recognize the 
union. Lawyers for the board and union argue that it is foolish for 
the company to appeal the 1984 decision, in which the Supreme Court 
ruled that illegal immigrant workers fall within the definition of 
"employee" in the National Labor Relations Act and thus have the 
right to join unions.

"Whether people are undocumented or not, they deserve to have some 
union represent them," said Lisa O'Leary, executive vice president of 
Local 342, which represents 10,000 meat, poultry and seafood workers 
in the New York area. "That will help reduce the abuses that 
undocumented workers face."

The Agriprocessors distribution center is one of 20 or so meat 
wholesalers at the Brooklyn Terminal Market at First Avenue near 56th 
Street in Sunset Park, where there are two long rows of low-lying 
buildings with meat hooks hanging above the loading docks. All but a 
handful of the meat companies are unionized.

Connected to the Agriprocessors center are two refrigeration trailers 
that hum 24 hours a day, and parked outside are trucks painted with 
the company's main retail logo, Aaron's Best.

Ante Vulin, a butcher at International Glatt Kosher Meats, a 
unionized wholesaler directly across from Agriprocessors, said 
belonging to the union meant higher pay and better benefits.

"What's the purpose of leaving here when you don't get more at 
another place?" said Mr. Vulin, who earns $20.25 an hour after 20 
years on the job.

David Young, an organizer with Local 342, said it was easy to get 
Agriprocessors' workers to vote to unionize because they had talked 
with workers at other distribution centers and seen the fruits of unionizing.

The manager of the Agriprocessors distribution center refused to 
comment about workplace conditions or the litigation. A company 
lawyer, Arnold Kaufman, said it would be inappropriate to comment 
during litigation — the company is hoping the Supreme Court will hear 
its appeal.

During the organizing drive in 2005, Agriprocessors fought hard to 
defeat the union. One worker said managers told him: "The union is 
not good. Everything they say is a lie."

The company, the labor board asserted, improperly fired two workers 
for supporting the union. Moreover, the board said, management sought 
to block the workers from voting for the United Food and Commercial 
Workers, by announcing one day that a majority of its drivers had 
signed up with a union known for working closely with employers, 
Local 17-18 of the United Production Workers.

Several workers said management representatives had pressured them to 
sign cards supporting Local 17-18, and had done so after management 
told the labor relations board that a majority of workers had already 
signed cards backing that union.

Labor board officials dismissed the company's efforts to steer its 
employees into Local 17-18 as a charade. It ordered the secret-ballot 
vote to proceed, and the workers voted to join the United Food and 
Commercial Workers.

When Agriprocessors said it would ignore the vote because it had 
discovered that most employees were in the country illegally, the 
union insisted the company was acting in bad faith.

"They knew all along they were hiring undocumented workers," said Mr. 
Young, the organizer. (He wondered why, if the company was suddenly 
so concerned about employing illegal immigrants, it did not conduct 
similar checks at its Iowa plant.)

Agriprocessors officials said they had no idea their Brooklyn 
employees were illegal immigrants, insisting that they had been 
fooled because the workers presented fraudulent documents. 
Agriprocessors officials said the same thing after the immigration 
raid at its Iowa plant in May.

Mr. Howard, the company's lawyer, said it should not be possible to 
join a union "if you are not legally allowed to work, if your working 
for this employer results from the perpetration of a fraud upon this 
employer and results from a crime against the country."

The National Labor Relations Board in Washington and the United 
States Court of Appeals in Washington rejected Agriprocessors' 
argument that illegal immigrants should not have the right to join 
unions. In a decision last January, the appeals court, echoing the 
1984 Supreme Court decision, wrote that allowing illegal immigrants 
to join a union "helps to assure that the wages and employment 
conditions of lawful residents are not adversely affected by the 
competition of illegal alien employees."

Nathan Lewin, the lead lawyer in Agriprocessors' appeal to the 
Supreme Court, said the issue should be reconsidered because there 
are so many more illegal immigrant workers now than in 1984 and 
because a federal law passed two years after that ruling made it a 
crime for companies to hire illegal immigrants.

"The attitude of federal and local laws towards illegal immigrant 
workers has undergone a sea change," the company's appeal says. 
"Federal policy regarding the employment of undocumented aliens is 
far more prohibitive today."

Alvin Blyer, regional director of the labor board's office in 
Brooklyn, said he was not surprised by the company's appeals.

"Many times employers are anxious to put off the day that they have 
to deal with a labor union and bargain collectively," Mr. Blyer said. 
"Even in cases where their legal position is unlikely to succeed, 
they find it economically worthwhile to delay that day."

Last Thursday, a butcher who had just finished the midnight-to-9 a.m. 
shift at the Agriprocessors distribution center said that the company 
had improved wages and conditions somewhat since the unionization 
vote three years ago. The worker said he was paid $8.50 an hour, got 
one week vacation a year and received time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

"We don't get health insurance," said the worker, who insisted on 
anonymity for fear of retaliation. And in a candid moment, he 
acknowledged that he was an illegal immigrant.