Trumka: Undocumented Carwashers are the Future of the Labor Movement

by | Mar 8, 2012 | Labor Relations Ink

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka was in Los Angeles last week to celebrate the signing of collective bargaining agreements between the Steelworkers and the Vermont Carwash and Nava’s Carwash in South LA.  The two carwashes have agreed to pay their carwash attendants $8.16 an hour with 2% raises per year that should come close to covering the USW union dues. That makes three unionized carwashes in the country, with Santa Monica’s Bonus Carwash becoming the first last year, and to President Trumka those victories signal an end to decades of union decline. “This is the future of the labor movement,” Trumka said, waving his hand towards a few dozen mostly undocumented carwashers and their families holding signs in English and Spanish. “This should be the headline: Carwash workers make history in L.A., and the labor movement and Los Angeles community stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” Trumka said. The unions of the AFL-CIO haven’t always been so thrilled with the undocumented, seeing them as depressing wages for American citizens.  As such any organizing of undocumented workers has been conducted by outlier unions like the United Farm Workers and incidentally by service worker catchall unions like SEIU and Unite HERE.    But as the more elitist unions feel the walls closing in on them in the government sector suddenly those undocumented undesirables are looking better and better to more union bosses. “Rich Trumka’s visit to California signals a big change in the leadership of the American labor movement with regards to attitudes toward immigrant labor,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. “It is in the strategic interests of unions to align with the immigrant workforce.” Union organizers are learning how to approach workers in their neighborhoods and recruit in Spanish while selling the notion of a union as the best protection against deportation. Unions are also investing heavily now in so called “workers’ centers” and immigrant advocacy groups to do the trust building for them. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, a “coalition of community and labor organizations” announced a “citywide campaign to reform the carwash industry” in New York City. No coincidence we suspect.  “This is a real partnership between community organizations and organized labor to try to tackle these problematic working conditions,” said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group that is leading the coalition with New York Communities for Change, another advocacy group, with “support” from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

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