One Thousand Workers, Religious and Civil Rights Leaders and Activists Rally in Support of Smithfield Workers

Thanks to the Justice at Smithfield Team for this Update!

On Wednesday, August 29th, 150 Smithfield workers and family members traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia to meet the top corporate leaders of Smithfield Foods, and were joined by 1000 supporters from around the country in a loud, colorful and passionate show of solidarity.

The demonstration, the largest in the history of the historic colonial town, dominated Smithfield Foods’ 2007 Shareholders meeting. Moved by a series of inspirational messages from faith, civil rights, and workers’ leaders at the First Baptist Church ( click here to see the diverse list of speakers), the overflow crowd took to the streets, chanting and singing to the beat of a dozen drummers and hundreds of whistles. Stopping briefly in front of the Williamsburg Lodge—the site of the shareholders meeting—the crowd shook the walls with their cries for justice at Smithfield’s Tar Heel Plant.

The most exciting moment, though, came inside the shareholders meeting. Ten workers from the Tar Heel plant and ten prominent clergy and community leaders went to the shareholders meeting. During the meeting, Reverend Nelson Johnson from the Southern Faith Labor Community Alliance gave an impassioned message of support for the workers cause on behalf of the millions of members represented by the prominent leaders. Terry Slaughter, a livestock worker at the Tar Heel plant, showed CEO C. Larry Pope petitions signed by thousands of Tar Heel employees—representing a strong majority of workers in the plant. The petitions demanded a free and fair choice for selecting a union and called for “A union and a union contract…like unionized Smithfield workers have in other plants…and for Smithfield to remain neutral and let people choose a union without the company interfering” Terry showed thousands of supporting petitions from Smithfield workers around the world-from Poland, Spain and France to Iowa and Nebraska.

After the event, press reports noted that Smithfield executives plan to enter into talks with UFCW representatives.   In another press interview, Pope “criticized the union’s extensive campaign against the company…’It is costing the company substantially,’ Pope said after the meeting.” And click here to watch the local television coverage.

As the supporters rallied nearby in Bicentennial Park they promised to continue to stand alongside the Tar Heel workers until the battle is won. When workers brought the news from inside the shareholders meeting, the crowd erupted in a chant that made clear that the movement was just getting started. “We will be back,” they cried. “We will be back.”

Reconciliation and Healing in Bellingham

Thanks to David Cahn, for sending us his latest op-ed from the Whatcom (County) Independent (posted below). If you’ve written an op-ed lately, send it to nwells@communitychange.org.

This article takes a look at the roots of anti-immigrant events and sentiments in his locale and in the US. Posing an interesting question, Do Lou Dobbs, the minutemen [and Tancredo and Romney for that matter] know their roots in the history of anti-immigrant movements in the US, Cahn asks us to look at the deeper roots of today’s immigration debate- a truly formidable task for any community.

His city, Bellingham, is striving to acknowledge the roots of anti-immigrant sentiment in their area by promoting a ‘Day of Healing and Reconciliation’- it would be great to hear if other towns have done similar actions- post your responses here.

The need for healing and reconcilliation
Guest Spot by David Cahn

David Cahn is an organizer with Community to Community Development and the grandson of immigrants. He conducts Immigration History 101 community workshops for any and all interested. He can be reached at davidncahn@gmail.com.

As today’s anti-immigrant movement is up in arms about migration across the U.S.-Mexico border as a threat to our nation, the anti-immigrant movement of one hundred years ago was similarly obsessed with the Pacific Coast.

One of the hallmark achievements of this movement was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was passed in an era of violent anti-Chinese riots that occurred up and down the coast, including our own community. A plaque along Harris Avenue in Fairhaven reminds us of this era. Marking the area where Chinese cannery workers were barred from the rest of town, it reads “Chinese deadline, no Chinese allowed beyond this point, 1878-1903.”
One anti-immigrant activist of the period wrote, “The Pacific Coast is the frontier of the white man’s world, the culmination of the westward immigration which is the white man’s whole history.”

In terms that sound strangely similar to, if not at least more honest than the nativist rhetoric of today, he goes on to write that it “will remain the frontier so long as we guard it as such; no longer. Unless it is maintained there, there is no other line at which it can be maintained without more effort than the American government and American civilization is able to sustain.”

I wonder if the Minutemen and Lou Dobbs types of today feel any sense of kinship with their historical predecessors or if they know about them at all. Regardless, it is important for us all to learn more about our community’s history.

This September 4 will be the one-hundred-year anniversary of a shameful local event. On this day in 1907, a mob of five hundred white workers gathered downtown to kick a community of Sikh and East Indian migrant workers out of the city limits.

Tancredo and Romney Hate-monger in Newark, NJ for votes - Giuliani throws in his two cents

We don’t often post editorials from the major papers, but in light of our coverage of the recent directive from the Attorney General in New Jersey around local law enforcement we wanted to highlight a recent editorial from the Washington Post:

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo hurried to New Jersey last week to “encourage the family of the victims [of the Newark killings] to pursue a lawsuit against the city,” suggesting that Newark’s tolerance of illegal immigrants might be partly responsible for the killings. Fellow Republican candidate Mitt Romney suggested in a radio ad that Newark was tempting fate because its leniency is attracting more illegal immigrants. Rudolph Giuliani, considered the Republican front-runner, expressed frustration with the fact that “we don’t throw (illegal immigrants who commit crimes) out of the country.”

Giuliani has sided with Tancredo and Romney in ratcheting up the fears and hatemongering around immigration in the US, and as the Washington Post points out, it is sad that they are using the case of the Newark killings to do so:

Posturing of this type is at best disingenuous. The number of deported illegal immigrants with criminal records has increased substantially in recent years, according to Homeland Security Department statistics. As a former prosecutor and mayor of New York City, Giuliani knows that successful crime reduction is based on a multifaceted approach that combines tougher enforcement with crime-prevention strategies. Targeting illegal immigrants was not a central element of crime fighting in Giuliani’s New York.

In news reports, relatives of the victims and Newark residents have insisted that the problem is not immigration. James Harvey, father of one of the students killed, sees it as a failure of the criminal justice system. As he told The Washington Post, regardless of whether the suspect with a criminal record was a “citizen of our country or not, he was prone to violence and he should not have been released.”

Newark Mayor Cory Booker also refused to jump onto the anti-immigration bandwagon. Announcing new measures to crack down on the flow of handguns into his city, Booker made clear where he sees immigration in relation to fighting crime: “It’s important I don’t have a climate in Newark where, documented or not, naturalized or not, people are afraid to talk with police.”

Most of us in the immigrant rights movement anticipate that 2008 will be a year filled with hate speech, fear mongering and low blow politics from both sides of the electoral race around immigration- So what are we going to do about? We’d love to hear your ideas here….

“We have a dream” - Youth Fast Against Deportations and Prince William County Laws

Below is an update from the Virginia Chapter of Barrios Unidas  on their fast for justice, definitely check out this link.

“We have a Dream”

44 years ago Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech to a nation that was divided, a nation suffering from the poison of injustice and racism. 44 year later on that same date (August 28th 2007), Latino youth from Fairfax County delivered their “We have a Dream” speech to a country once again divided, once again fractured by the bitter taste of racism and xenophobia that once sickened our nation.

Their concern about what is happening in Prince William county and other jurisdictions that have taken an inhumane stand against immigrants is self evident. Their desire to change the status quo is unquestionable as they are even willing to sacrifice and fast in order to bring any inkling of justice to our world. We hope that you download and share this speech with all youth, politicians, government officials, parents, and anyone that will hear the words of our young people.

Come Out and STOP the Prince William Anti-Immigrant Laws

MARCH AND RALLY TO DEMAND THE END TO THE PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY ANTI-IMMIGRANT LEGISLATION

On July 10 Prince William’s County Board of Supervisors approved an anti-immigrant resolution that would give local police the authority to interrogate detainees regarding their immigration status and would require that the county local police department sign a collaboration agreement with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.   The resolution also seeks to prevent undocumented residents from receiving public services and would give public service providers the authority to request immigration documentation from people requesting services at public clinics, hospitals, libraries, parks, etc. 

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2ND
MEETING POINT: MALCOLM X PARK
12 NOON
(16TH & EUCLID STREETS, NW)

There we will board buses and travel to Woodbridge (McCoart Administration Building, 1
County Complex Ct, Woodbridge, VA 22192) to meet up with our  brothers and sisters at the march/rally.  Buses will return to DC after the march.

For more information contact: NCIC (202) 462-7042

The Power of our Communities - New Video Testimonials

As a part of their Reality Tour this summer, Voces de la Frontera opened honest dialogue across the state of Wisconsin on immigration and immigrant rights in their diverse communities. Some of these conversations were captured in video testimonials- check out the videos here:

Prince William Boycotts Heat Up

Immigrant communities and allies of Prince William are boycotting non-immigrant businesses this week in a show of unified opposition to the recent anti-immigrant local legislation. Some anti-immigrant advocates have countered with their own boycott of immigrant owned businesses- the divisiveness and destruction of anti-immigrant measures continues to polarize our communities.

Sept. 6 & 7 National Call-In Day- Stop Enforcement Only Policies

American Friends Service Committee and Partners*
 Invite Your Participation

Thursday September 6 & Friday September 7, 2007
Stop Immigration Enforcement-Only Policies

Take Action Now:  The recently introduced Immigration Enforcement and Border Security Act of 2007 (S. 1984) focuses on punishing immigrant families, adding border fences, walls, and patrol agents, and increasing detention centers and deportations.  In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finalized a new rule requiring employers who receive Social Security Administration (SSA) “no-match” letters to follow steps to prove that employees are authorized to work or risk liability.  The policy misuses the letters, which are not intended for immigration enforcement, and could result in employment discrimination.  Congress has received thousands of calls supporting enforcement-only measures that will harm immigrants and refugees.  We must let Senate leaders know that this flawed legislation and DHS policy will not fix the out-of-date immigration system.  Spread the word! 

Call your Senator and Share this Action Alert!

Ohio Solidarity- 160 taken in poultry raid

Yesterday we spoke with advocates in Ohio as they responded swiftly to the raids hitting a major poultry plant- Koch Foods. These major raids on workers are terrifying and painful for communities across the country. We know that folks throughout the immigrant rights movement are standing in solidarity with these individuals and we hope that folks from other social justice movements will begin to speak more openly and more fervently against this form of attack.

This event also brings to light a larger spreading problem for immigrant communities from coast to coast. ICE seems to be holding fewer, or more spread out major workplace raids such as this, perhaps to avoid media backlash. Instead they seem to be rolling out more and more home raids and smaller scale operations where they are taking countless individuals in the middle of night, with little media coverage or public attention. This form of raid is just as hurtful as the bigger workplace raids that grab the pubic imagination- it is time that we collect more information and build awareness about these tactics that are just as devastating.

A step forward, but it still won’t free the children from prison

We’ve all gotten word that the government has agreed to settle the lawsuit against Don Hutto Family Prison,

“The federal government and lawyers for immigrant children have announced an agreement to improve living conditions at the nation’s main family detention center for illegal immigrant suspects.

The deal involves the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Tex., which houses about 400 asylum seekers and others suspected of being in the country illegally, about half of whom are children and teenagers…

… The agreement, announced as a trial had been set to begin on Monday, requires improving education, recreation and nutrition for children, hiring a full-time pediatrician, and installing privacy curtains around toilets. It provides for inspections by a federal magistrate, Andrew W. Austin.

“This is a huge victory,” said Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the Racial Justice Program of the A.C.L.U. “Though we continue to believe that Hutto is an inappropriate place to house children, conditions have drastically improved in areas like education, recreation, medical care and privacy.”” [nytimes, 8/28/07]

It’s a good step forward, particularly for standards at other facilities across the country. However we cannot take this conciliation as the end of the line. Immigrant rights advocates continue to move forward pushing for the rights of families and all detainees.