Chicago Unions Look to Strengthen Ties After Immigration Clash

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/110111/chicago_unions_look_to_strengthen_ties_after_immigration_clash/

By Tiffany Ten Eyck, Labor Notes. Posted December 6, 2008.

Leaders of Chicago’s worker centers and unions have been meeting to soothe conflicts over the defense of unionized immigrant workers.

Tensions developed this summer after union members approached a worker center for help with no-match letters from the Social Security Administration. The letters tell employers which employees’ social security numbers don’t match their name and are often used as an excuse to fire immigrant workers.

“Union members were coming to worker centers either because the unions weren’t doing something, or they didn’t know they had a union,” said Eddie Acosta, the coordinator of the AFL-CIO worker center program. “Then worker centers would come to the unions and say, ‘look, we got your members here.’ It would raise the hackles of the unions.”

WHERE’S THE UNION?

When members of the Sheet Metal Workers union employed at Wheatland Tube Company feared for their jobs after the company received no-match letters, they turned to the Chicago Workers Collaborative. The organization defends immigrant workers, and has held call-ins on a popular Spanish-language radio station for immigrants to discuss problems at work.

Workers told Tim Bell, executive director of the CWC, that the union was advising members to resolve Social Security problems on their own.

The CWC contacted the union and introduced its activist menu—active grievance filing, public pressure campaigns, and seminars that counsel workers on their rights when pressured by management. The conversation didn’t go well.

FULL story at link.