Reply #30: Well said. "“Workers don’t depress wages. Unscrupulous employers do,”

[pampango]

"said Terence O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Unemployment in his industry is above 21 percent. Nearly two million construction workers are out of work. So what does Mr. O’Sullivan want? Reform that allows immigrants to legalize . “If we can free them so they can come out of the shadows, we can not only improve their lives, but all workers’ lives ,” he said. (Reminds me of MLK's belief that the civil rights movement would not only free Blacks, but whites as well.)

"The unions, at least, understand that there is a better way. They see immigration reform as an issue of worker empowerment. If undocumented immigrants undercut wages and job conditions for Americans — and many do, by tolerating low pay and abuse and bolstering an off-the-books system that robs law-abiding employers and taxpayers — it is because they cannot stand up for their rights."

"These questions deserve an answer since the bad economy will only strengthen the stiff winds of opposition that President Obama will have to fight if he is going to win the sweeping immigration overhaul he has promised. Legalization was already politically treacherous thanks to the tireless work of restrictionists who have spent years denouncing illegal immigrants as harmful to the country’s health . They have long compared the undocumented to invaders and parasites; it’s a very short distance from there to scabs. To understand why that view is misguided, it helps to remember that the country has largely bought that argument and spent decades and billions to seal the border as tightly as possible."

"Making the pro-union case for reform is not necessarily going to be easy. Even as immigration has changed the face of many American unions, hostility to foreigners remains a problem among some of the rank and file. Mr. Medina said union leaders were going to have to work hard to make members understand that false populism was not on their side."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/opinion/21tues1.html?ref=opinion