Just read an interesting - and timely - commentary regarding Cesar Chávez by Luis Alvarado on Fox & Hounds. While Im not taking anything away from the piece or the accompanying video below, the truth is, forced unionization was actually something in which Chávez was actively engaged... In its early years, Chávez and the UFW went so far as to report those who refused to unionize to the Immigration and Naturalization Service for deportation! Not so ironically, there remains legitimate debate surrounding Chávezs push to eliminate the Bracero program and the negative impact that has had on contemporary problems with illegal immigration from Mexico. If you read this quote from Chávez youll realize he was in favor of curbing immigration because, above all, it posed a threat to unionization: Our potential competition appears almost unlimited as thousands upon thousands of green carders pour across the border during peak harvest seasons. These are people who, though lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence, have not now, and probably never had, any bona fide intention of making the United States of America their permanent home. They come here to earn American dollars to spend in Mexico where the cost of living is lower. They are natural economic rivals of those who become American citizens or who otherwise decide to stake out their future in this country. In abolishing the bracero program, Congress has but scotched the snake, not killed it. The program lives on in the annual parade of thousands of illegal and green carders across the United States-Mexico border to work in our fields. To achieve law and order in any phase of human activity, legislators must pay need to other laws not made by man, one of which is the economic law of supply and demand. We are asking Congress to pay heed to this law in the light of some hard facts about farm labor supply along our southern border. Otherwise, extension of [the National Labors Relations Act] coverage to farm workers in that part of the country will not produce much law and order. What we ask is some way to keep the illegals and green carders from breaking strikes; some civil remedy against growers who employ behind our picket lines those who have entered the United States illegally, and, likewise those green carders who have not permanently moved their residence and domicile to the United States
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:34:21 +0000