SEIU USA "No Worker Is Illegal" Campaign

January 3, 2007

SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Position on Immigration

No Worker is Illegal

By WILLIAM JOHNSON

Members of the Service Employees (SEIU) in Northern California are demanding
just immigration reform. That's not too surprising. For the past two
decades, SEIU has been one of organized labor's strongest advocates for
immigrant rights.

This campaign, however, pits SEIU members not against anti-immigrant
employers or politicians, but against their union's top officials. Dubbing
their campaign, "No Worker is Illegal," members of SEIU throughout
California are demanding that their union's leaders retract their support of
immigration reform legislation like the recent Hegel-Martinez and
McCain-Kennedy bills.

McCain-Kennedy, which will likely be the model for any immigration reform
bill proposed by the incoming, Democratically-controlled Congress, would
have established a federal "guest worker" program, under which employers
could hire immigrant workers on a temporary basis without providing them a
guaranteed path to citizenship.
McCain-Kennedy would have also further militarized the U.S.-Mexico border
and leveled sanctions against employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

WEAKENING UNIONS

Renee Saucedo, a member of SEIU Local 790 in San Francisco and a leader of
the "No Worker is Illegal" campaign, says that these provisions could have
disastrous consequences for immigrant workers and SEIU. She asks, "How are
we supposed to organize workplaces with these kind of laws?

"[Guest worker] programs make immigrants more vulnerable and less likely to
take the risks that go along with joining a unionEmployer sanctions can lead
to discrimination, since some employers will try to avoid hiring immigrants
altogether-or anyone who looks or talks like them."

Frustrated with their international's position, members of Local 790 began
reaching out to members of other SEIU locals in California earlier this