AFL-CIO Embraces Day Laborers

From the Washington Post:

The AFL-CIO agreed today to work with a national network of day laborer organizers, a move that could bring representatives for some of the most publicly scorned illegal immigrants to the policymaking table of the nation's largest union group and provide day workers with a potent ally in local efforts to establish hiring halls and national campaigns for legalization.

Six years after organized labor's pivotal policy shift toward support of illegal workers, the resolution, approved by the AFL-CIO executive council in Chicago, further cemented the struggling labor movement's embrace of illegal immigrants as key parts of the American workforce and potential union members. The partnership does not require day laborers to join unions.

Research indicates about three-fourths of day laborers are in the country illegally.

For the day laborers and their grassroots organizers, who have faced intense opposition in Herndon and other places, the historic agreement offers access to perks of big organized labor: Teams of expert lobbyists and lawyers and a chance to devise strategies on work-related issues with local councils of the 9 million-member AFL-CIO, which for decades saw illegal immigrants as threats to native workers and pushed for sanctions against them.

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--Tom Hayes