NYT: firing of undocumented workers "a consuming debate over what it means to be a liberal college"

[alp227]

Geez. From the NY Times article "After Workers Are Fired, an Immigration Debate Roils California Campus":

The dining hall workers had been at Pomona College for years, some even decades. For a few, it was the only job they held since moving to United States.

Then late last year, administrators at the college delivered letters to dozens of the longtime employees asking them to show proof of legal residency, saying that an internal review had turned up problems in their files.

Seventeen workers could not produce documents showing that they were legally able to work in the United States. So on Dec. 2, they lost their jobs.

Now, the campus is deep into a consuming debate over what it means to be a liberal college, with some students, faculty and alumni accusing the administration and the board of directors of betraying the college’s ideals.

Well I'm a liberal and guess what? I am totally in support of prosecuting employers who knowingly hire people who lack work authorization. Did the New York Post (a Murdoch-owned tabloid) infiltrate the Times or something? Liberal to me means supporting workers' rights, but employing cheap immigrant labor ain't part of that.

[qazplm]

1. it's also the law

so not really sure why this would engender any issues.

Are they expecting them to knowingly employ illegals?

[zbdent]

3. and if they hadn't fired the workers ... imagine what the headlines would be

as the "liberal" college is hit with all kinds of legal problems ...

[Brickbat]

2. A "liberal" college shouldn't mean one that breaks the law and contributes to worker exploitation.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

[pnwmom]

5. Cut and dried? Don't unions help prevent worker exploitation?

This seems anything but cut and dried to me. The workers are saying that Pomona took this action in retaliation against efforts to unionize. They point out that other colleges among the group aren't taking similar measures against their employees. So why did Pomona do this now, in the midst of the union drive?

[Brickbat]

7. Shame on me for not reading farther! I do wish that article had talked to the union or at least

named what union they're working with.

[pnwmom]

9. Here are a couple of other links.

They have been trying to organize an "independent union." Someone identified as "Unite Here Local 11 Communications Coordinator Leigh Shelton" talked to the Huffington Post.

I can see why thoughtful, progressive people would be debating about this. On the one hand, we don't want American workers to be undercut by illegal aliens. On the other, we don't want people to be retaliated against for attempting to unionize. And we don't know what all the facts are . . . but the timing of the actions of Pomona -- taken alone, not coordinated with the other Claremont Colleges -- do make me wonder.

http://www.workersforjustice.org/2011/11/silence-and-fear-at-pomona-college/

Last week, activists send a petition to Pomona College to repeal its gag order that prohibits workers from talking to students in dining halls.

Now, Pomona College officials are demanding that some dining hall workers, along with some student employees and faculty, present documents authorizing them to work in the United States. And if they don’t produce the documents by Dec. 1, they face termination, college officials say. Pomona College is reverifying work documents even though no federal agency has told them to do so.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/02/pomona-college-protest-undocumented-workers_n_1125904.html

The action comes as dining hall workers have been trying to organize an independent union for about two years. As the Los Angeles Times reports, union negotiations with the college are currently stalled.
Cynthia Peters, media relations director for the college, told HuffPost, "The terminations had nothing to do with the union organizing. The two issues are completely separate."
SNIP

As the Pomona College student paper, Student Life, reports, Pomona visiting professor of politics and Yale law graduate Michael Teter challenged Efron’s legal reasoning in an open letter to the Board of Trustees, “The decision to conduct an audit of the I-9s demonstrates, at best, overzealousness and, at worst, a fundamental disregard for the dignity and privacy of every employee. To seek to justify the College’s actions by referring to a discredited allegation and to federal law is disingenuous."
Regarding the close timing of the termination to union organizing activity, Teter wrote that the college's “intrusive and arbitrary verifications.. may also have violated the National Labor Relations Act.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/pomona-college-dining-hall-workers-rally.html

Dining hall workers have been trying to organize an independent union for about two years, said Cristian Torres, a cook who has worked at the school for six years. Those efforts are stalled in negotiations with the university, he said.
Felipa Sanchez, a cook at the university for 23 years, said she felt the letter was meant to intimidate workers.
“Why now, after 23 years, are they doing this?” she said.
Sanchez initially kept her distance from ongoing union organizing efforts, believing that “if you’re at work, if you do a good job, you’ll be OK,” she said. “Now I realize it’s not like that.”

[Snake Alchemist]

8. Hopefully, the new employees will be able to successfully unionize. nt

[pnwmom]

4. Are you okay with it if this was a retaliation against efforts to unionize?

Which is what some of the workers believe. The article also points out that other colleges among the cluster that Pomona is a part of haven't felt the need to take similar actions -- so why did Pomona?

I think this situation is more complicated than it first appears.

[Snake Alchemist]

6. Just doing the work that Americans won't do.

Americans are just too highfalutin.

[pampango]

10. Some of the college's students, faculty and alumni have a different view of how a liberal college

should handle such a situation.

Are you assuming that this liberal college "knowingly hired people who lack work authorization?"? Sounds to me like they initiated the investigation and then took action when 17 were shown to lack documentation.

Liberals sometimes disagree on how to balance the human vs legal aspects of illegal immigration. Conservatives rarely seem to have this difference of opinion within their ranks. If this had been a conservative, religious college, I doubt that many of the students, faculty or alumni would be doing anything other than suggesting that we deport them all.