Organizing the Undocumented Worker
In this interview conducted in Spanish, Antonio Orendain and Estella Salinas, organizers with the Texas Farm Workers Union (TFWU), discuss the situation of the undocumented worker and the Union’s efforts to pass legislation that will protect all farm workers. Orendain explains how undocumented workers are exploited in both Mexico and the United States and the only way to protect all workers is through union contracts. He also draws comparisons between farm workers and industrial workers who are protected by unions. The TFWU is currently lobbying to pass an Agriculture Labor Relations Act in Texas that will protect farm workers just as the 1935 Labor Relations act protected industrial workers. Orendain also discusses the recent International Conference for the Defense of the Undocumented Worker, which several U.S. union leaders attended.
Estella Salinas then discusses the precarious situation of the undocumented worker. She explains that transnational agribusiness have been able to neutralize strikes by planting on the Mexican side of the border. Similarly packing and oil companies have made several incursions into Mexico where they are able to pay workers low wages and obtain significant concessions. Salinas also talks about the many ways immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy and the continued vulnerability they face. While undocumented workers pay taxes, they are often too afraid to ask for aid and social services. Moreover, they are often the target of violence from both vigilantes and law enforcement agents and employer abuse.
KEYWORDS
AFL-CIOAgribusiness
Agriculture Labor Relations Act
Antonio Orendain
Auto Workers
Bill Clements
Border Patrol
Chicanos and the Media
Civil Rights Commission
Collective Bargaining
Collective Rights
Del Monte
Economic Contribution of the Undocumented Worker
Education
Ejidos
Employer Abuses
Employer Abuses
Estella Salinas
Exploitation
Farm Workers
Free Trade
General Foods
Guatemala
Illegal Alien
Illegal Immigration
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Industrial Workers
Mexican Unions
Mexican Workers
Mexico
National Labor Relations Act
Oil Companies
Onion Strike
Police Brutality
Political Vulnerability
Protest
Rape
Right to Work Laws
San Antonio
San Juan March
Taft-Hartley Act
Texas Farm Workers Union
Texas-Mexico Border
Transnational Agribusiness
Transnational Corporations
Transnationalism
Undocumented workers
Union organizing
Vulnerability of the Undocumented Worker
Wagner Act