No Worker is Illegal

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.

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