Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:31:00 -0400
Subject: AUT: The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants?


Angela;

Sorry you had problems finding the leaflet nailing the AF of L. --but it is
posted
on Internationalists Web (http://www.ibrp.org) both as new update material
dtd 6/5/00
and in the LA Workers Voice section too.

so i will send you a copy as well as one for the Autopsy List.
Comments and debate are welcomed.

Neil
Communist-left IBRP 
---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From:   neil, 74742,1651
 
DATE:   6/4/00 12:38 AM

RE:       The AFL/CIO, a new friend of Immigrants?


After supporting most all  repressive US government anti-immigrant 
regulations and actions  for  many decades , the AFL/CIO trade union
federation's executive council is  seemingly  doing a 180 degree turn  and
now will support  "regulated legal immigration" , an amnesty for all 
undocumented workers  inside US borders and as well claims it will  no
longer co-operate  with the regular round-ups and other US Immigration and
Naturalization (La Migra)  actions against immigrants.

If the AFL's  new positions were sincere, it  would mean it  is turning
over a new leaf. The  federation  now says, " the AFL/CIO  proudly stands
on the side of immigrant workers."  Is the AFL sincere  in dumping
overboard its experienced  massed political artillery  of anti-immigrant
chauvinism?  How does this change fit into the present  needs of the  US
bosses/government  whom the AFL is so loyal to? What is the actual track
record?

It is almost common knowledge that for decades the AFL/CIO  stance on
immigrants  was in line with some of the most racist and ultra-nationalist 
forces of  our capitalist rulers. Part of this was the old lying saw that  
 "illegals are taking jobs away from American workers, driving wages  down,
 and  making conditions of work deteriorate." And " Immigrant Aliens" were 
also said to be used by companies  to break strikes and weaken AFL union
organizing drives. Time and again, the AFL backed reactionary legislation
in state legislatures and in Congress. Obviously , it was the AFL itself 
that was making the rounds parroting the bosses divide and rule lies. It
could have exposed/fought  this reactionary  drivel if it  really wanted to
build workers unity and struggle against  the attacks of the rich. But the
AFL-CIO  is basically a  big labor merchandizing organization that backs
the wages system  and the rule of capital, lock, stock and barrel.

Bonafide workers organizations expose   poverty, unemployment, and 
anti-immigrant chauvinism  as the product of the domination of capitalist
social relations, wage slavery, class rule and production not for human
needs, but instead for sales and profits.

The AFL, in its long history of  hostility to the undocumented workers  was
driven  mainly by its interests as a  negotiator of the price of the
commodity labor-power. In the past the AFL  considered the undocumented
workers almost like lepers. It thought it had more fertile and profitable
fields for its  "organizing" in industries  that did not have significant
numbers  of  immigrant labor. But in the last 20 years there have been big
changes in the world capitalist economy. There has been enormous
privatization of  industries, contracting-out to small
non-union shops by huge previously unionized firms. Now there is vast
globalization of capitalist production and the movement of big companies to
other  capitalist  and state capitalist  countries where the costs of
labor-power are much cheaper , raw materials close by & available to
plunder,  and workers controlled  in even more slavelike conditions  than
in the "free" USA.

The unions have pleaded poverty for the bosses and have  shoved many
concessions contracts down their own members throats. Unions accepting
concessions to  maintain a dues base and competitive profits for business
has led many workers to become demoralized concerning the fight  for the
liberation of the working class. The  AFL/CIO  new immigrant  resolution
shows it  is really after  new duespayers  and assures the 
bosses that immigrants  should be  made docile and subservient.  Its
resolution states "Labor and business should work together to design
co-operative mechanisms  that allow law-abiding employers  to satisfy
legitimate needs for new  workers in a timely manner without compromising
the rights and liberties of workers already here." It also asks that 
workers should have upgraded skill levels that enhance our " shared
economic prosperity." (The People, Apr. 2000, Vol 110, #1) But under
capitalism, law abiding capitalists violate  workers liberty and their
pursuit of happiness  every  day. It is also  just so much twaddle that
workers have "shared economic prosperity" with their exploiters.  The
capitalist employers rob the workers of near 80% of the wealth their
labor-power alone creates. 

Our rich rulers also want to use more new "legal" immigrant workers as 
cannon fodder to be dragooned and conscripted into the  bosses armed forces
to defend and expand  US  capitalists markets ,  raw material monopolies
and business enterprises  in other lands. Military enlistments are down
now. But the AFL/CIO, a top recruiting sergeant that supports  the bosses
militarism, is happy to be of service to indoctrinate workers into being
loyal to the bosses "democratic" rule and have military  "service"
performed for the State, i.e. the ruling class..

Workers, immigrant and non-immigrant, need organization, industrial and
political , but not organs based on class collaboration a la the AFL. We
need to build new workers groups and other mass organs of struggle  against
 waged slavery  and exploitation. This can be built by workers from the
rank and file, but we will have to go forward against the unions, opposing
the lying tricks of both the  Democratic and Republican Parties as well.

Internationalist Notes and LA Workers' Voice, PO Box 57483, Los Angeles, CA
90057      
Visit the Internationalists Web: http://www.ibrp.org                       
    June 7, 2000
 


















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