"Immigration policy is work policy,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) conference in Los Angeles this morning.

The AFL-CIO stands “shoulder to shoulder” with immigrant workers, Trumka said,

to beat back the enforcement of anti-immigrant initiatives on the state and local level that are a threat to the rights of all workers.
NDLON and the AFL-CIO partnered in 2006 to work together to fix the nation’s broken immigration system and fight for workplace rights, health and safety and other job-related concerns.
We turned back some horrible legislation since then, and we’ve kept up the struggle together to make sure that workers’ rights—your rights and all of our rights—are recognized and respected.

In a message to conference attendees, NDLON Executive Director Pablo Alvarado says, “These are not easy times but we are indeed on the road to justice.”

Turning the tide is not just about a campaign against immigration enforcement but also about day laborers leading a movement for dignity and justice. When we open a worker center and extend our open hand to our neighbors, we are turning the tide. When our promotion efforts bring new employers to hire ready workers, we are turning the tide. When humble workers refuse to allow this country to take our labor without also recognizing our full humanity, the tide has already begun to turn.

Trumka told the NDLON activists that as AFL-CIO unions, state federations and central labor councils have worked together with NDLON,

More and more, we have all come to see that work connects us all.  You’re working with the Laborers’ (LIUNA) in New Jersey, Texas and California to build unions. Day labor centers in Washington State have joined the AFL-CIO and are bringing the best of our movements together—your creativity, courage and strength, our experience and political power.

He reiterated the labor movement’s strong support of the DREAM Act and a legalization program for immigrant workers. He also outlined how the AFL-CIO and NDLON worker centers and other groups have worked together to pass wage theft laws in several cities and states to “hold employers accountable and secure the wages that you work so hard for.”

The selective enforcement of immigration law along with the e-verify program in its current form that is “the latest version of the raid on the workplace,” Trumka said.

We know all too well what the selective enforcement of immigration laws does for workers who are trying to form unions. Just a few miles from here, at Pomona College, 17 workers who have been organizing to join UNITE HERE Local 11 food service and restaurant workers union were fired for not having proper work documents—this is a clear case—the National Labor Relations Board found that the college targeted and punished workers who wanted to form a union.

Last year, for first time, the labor movement joined hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers around the country in celebrating May Day as immigrant workers’ day. This year, Trumka said, “We will celebrate May Day as a day to recognize the rights of immigrants and the rights of workers.”

This year, we’ll stand together again, but I’m talking about more than a rally. The AFL-CIO is embracing the future of America’s labor movement. We’re joining together with you to transform this great nation. We’ll celebrate the brave men and women who come to this country, who struggle here for a better life, because America draws its strength from that struggle.

Trumka is on a two-day California trip to highlight and support the efforts of low-wage, immigrant workers in Los Angeles and Sacramento. He will meet later today with carwash workers in Los Angeles who recently won union contracts as part of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign. In Sacramento tomorrow, Trumka will join with domestic workers who are mobilizing to pass a Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights in the state legislature.