Immigration Communication   Jobs with Justice

* Below you will find a list of hints for conversations about immigration with co-workers
   These hints were assembled by Jobs with Justice.  JWJ is part of the Immigrants Rights
   Coalition which includes, Voz, PCUN, CAUSA, the American Friends Service Committee
   and others. 

   We can thank Laurie from Jobs with Justice for her efforts... 

   JwJ Forum on Immigration:
   How best to have conversations on immigration with co-workers and union members.

   Hints are divided into communication skills and content area, although the two are
   interrelated and overlap.

A. Communication skills:

1. Ask where information is coming from. Show people that they may not have a solid
    foundation in facts.

2. Instead of saying “economists say a, b, and c,” state that you read x, y, and z and
    provide the specifics of what you read.  ---Try to give sources.

3. Be sure to listen actively and not lecture. Repeat back what the person has said.
    Don’t feel that you must get everything across in just one conversation.

4. Identify with the issue that the person you are talking with has, but stay on message.

5. If you can, sit down and talk face to face. This gives more importance to the topic.

6. Ask questions and listen to the answer. Some questions might clarify the issue. For
    instance, if someone is complaining about immigrants not learning English, you can
    ask: Why would immigrants not want to learn English?  What might an immigrant
    worker’s life be like? How long should it take to learn English?
    Have you ever learned another language?

If someone finds that it is threatening or bad that their neighborhood has stores that are Korean, Mexican, or Salvadoran, ask, “What is bad about it?” “What is threatening?” 

7. Try to get the person with an anti-immigrant position to get into the immigrant’s point
    of view. Start with your ancestors who were immigrant (if they were) and theirs. Ask
    what they would do for their families. Talk about the pain and risks of immigrating to
    the U.S. Why would people go through these risks? Talk about how people adapt to
    new environments, including different cultures within the U.S. and different work
    cultures.  (The carpenters, e.g. are a culture or cultures.)

8. Be open-minded. We might learn something.

9. If as immigrant advocates, we sometimes feel despair or have difficulty getting beyond
   our anger at hearing anti-immigrant opinions of our colleagues, be proactive. Don’t give
   up. Keep a folder with facts that you find relevant to arguments that you hear.

B. Content:
   Perspectives and facts on immigration and other related issues:

1. Get from immigration to core working class issues. In the media, in politics, and in
    public discussion, huge economic and social problems facing workers are not looked
    at through the frame of systemic economic issues. More and more they are filtered
    through the issues of immigration.

Find common ground with the person you are speaking with whenever possible. 
Validate the underlying problem. But show that it is the corporate system (with the
compliance of the government) that causes significant economic problems for 
workers, while immigrants do not. There has been a corporate assault since the early 
1970s that many workers will recognize if you bring it up. For example, if the person
you are talking with says that immigrants are driving down our wages, agree that our
real wages are declining. But, use facts to re-frame the situation as arising from a
corporate drive to extract more profits.


When appropriate, discuss NAFTA.  Remind people that prior to the implementation
of this corporate giveaway, immigration was declining.  After this wrong-headed
initiative destroyed small businesses and farms in central and south America, US
immigration increased when workers migrated to feed their families.  This "agreement"
needs reform.  These transnational corporate cartels should be required to abide
by US environmental and employment regulations when moving jobs out of the USA.
Government oversight of corporate partners will raise wages and standards across
all of the Americas.  Responsible corporations can become partners in this process.

The fact that the real minimum wage has been declining has a very negative effect on our wages. See the attached fact sheet from Marty Hart-Landsberg to understand how immigrants have generally raised U.S. wages. It is the Chamber of Commerce and othercorporate lobbying groups that make sure that the minimum wage has not gone up inyears. We should be focused on the Chamber of commerce, not on immigrants.

If people complain that immigrants use up tax revenues, agree that we do not
get nearly enough for the taxes we pay. Schools, health care, libraries, and more are
severely underfunded. Show that the tax shift from corporations to individuals and
from rich individuals to working class individuals (plus of course, the war economy)
that is taking precious tax revenue away from what we desperately need in the public
domain. Immigrants, on the other hand, actually pay more money into taxes than they
are able to retrieve. (See Marty Hart - Landsberg’s Fact Sheet, attached.)

Point out that the corporations get off free, because they and their media frame
systemic economic problems as problems caused by immigrants. (See Marty Hart 
Landsberg’s fact sheet, attached, in which he shows immigrants do not low wages.)

2. As the person you are talking with begins to focus on economic problems arising
from the corporate system, bring up the fact that if labor forms an alliance with
immigrants, we will be stronger in fighting for national health care, a decent minimum
wage, fair trade policy, the right to organize unions, and more. Just as one cannot call
a non-union worker a “rat,” and then expect to organize them, non-immigrant workers cannot
see the immigrant as the “other,” and expect them to fight side by side for what all workers need.  In fact all through U.S. history immigrant workers have re-vitalized the labor movement, benefiting all workers. (See attached brief Labor-Immigrant time.)

Ask “Who benefits from keeping immigrants out of unions?”

3. In our system, there is a double standard for judging the behavior of the corporate and
government elite class, on the one hand, and the poor and vulnerable on the other. This
applies to the use of the adjective, “illegal” as in “illegal immigrant,” or “illegal alien,”
or to the noun, '‘illegal.” When people talk about how they are not against immigration, they are just against “people sneaking in illegally and breaking the law,” ask “Why not put real anger and energy into fighting the illegal activities of corporations and employers in fighting workers when they try to form unions?” This corporate behavior really lowers workers’ standards. Violations of the Voting Rights Act, also illegal, was disastrous for workers in 2000 and 2004. Was Enron punished adequately? And, the “legal system” of immigration doesn’t work. For instance, one cannot apply to be a “legal” immigrant from Mexico. And if someone who is here without papers were to apply for “legal” status, they would be arrested.

4. Show that immigrants and workers born in this country have key shared values: family,
hard work, a wish for a decent life.

5. Bring out the fact that differences are a good thing, when you know and appreciate people.

6. The argument: “Immigrants take jobs that Americans don’t want” is frequently used by
immigrant rights advocates, but we should avoid it, because there are jobs that both
immigrants and non-immigrants want, like construction work. In addition, we shouldn’t
pigeon hole immigrants into low wage, undesirable jobs. We should be fighting to unionize and to raise the standards of all jobs for all workers.