Unions in California are totally different from these elsewhere.
Greater than any state in our troubled nation, their ranks are crammed with individuals of shade and immigrants. Whereas unions have at all times been tied intently with the struggles of civil rights, that has grow to be much more pronounced within the years since George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
Within the subsequent nationwide soul-searching, unions have been pressured to do a little bit of their very own. However the place that dialog has largely damaged down for basic society below the strain of President Trump’s right-wing rage, it took maintain inside unions to a a lot larger diploma — resulting in extra management from individuals of shade, generally youthful management and positively an understanding from the rank and file that these are organizations that battle far past the office.
Which is why the arrest of David Huerta, president of SEIU-USWW and SEIU California, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday goes to have a serious impression on the approaching months as deportations proceed.
“They’ve woke us up,” Tia Orr informed me Saturday morning. She’s the manager director of the 700,000-strong Service Staff Worldwide Union California, of which Huerta is part, and the primary African American and Latina to steer the group.
“And I believe they’ve woke individuals up throughout the nation, actually in California, and individuals are able to get to motion,” she added. “I haven’t seen that in a very long time. I don’t know that I’ve seen one thing like that earlier than, and so sure, it will end in motion that I imagine goes to be historic.”
Whereas unions have voiced their disapproval of mass deportations because the MAGA menace first manifested, their would possibly has not gone full power towards them, taking as a substitute a little bit of a wait-and-see method.
Effectively, of us, we’ve seen. We’ve seen the unidentified masked males rounding up immigrants throughout the nation and transport them into life sentences at torturous international prisons; we’ve watched a 9-year-old Southern California boy separated from his father and detained for deportation; and Friday, throughout Los Angeles, we noticed an nameless military-style power of federal brokers sweep up our neighbors, members of the family and mates in what gave the impression to be a haphazard and intentionally merciless approach.
And for these of you who’ve watched the video of Huerta’s arrest, we’ve seen a middle-aged Latino man in a plaid button-down be roughly pushed by authorities in riot gear till he falls backward, and appears to strike his head on the curb. Huerta was, in response to a tv interview with Mayor Karen Bass, pepper-sprayed as properly. Then he was taken to the hospital for remedy, then into custody, the place he stays till a Monday arraignment.
U.S. Atty. Invoice Essayli wrote on social media that “Federal brokers have been executing a lawful judicial warrant at a LA worksite this morning when David Huerta intentionally obstructed their entry by blocking their car. He was arrested for interfering with federal officers … Let me be clear: I don’t care who you’re—if you happen to impede federal brokers, you may be arrested and prosecuted. Nobody has the fitting to assault, hinder, or intrude with federal authorities finishing up their duties.”
I’ve lined protests, violent and nonviolent, for greater than 20 years. In one of many first such occasions I lined, I watched an iconic union chief, Invoice Camp, sit down in the midst of the highway in a Santa go well with and refuse to maneuver. Police arrested him. However they managed to do it with out violence, and with out Camp’s resistance. That is how unions do good hassle — with out worry, with out violence.
Huerta understands the foundations and energy of peaceable protest higher than most. The union he’s president of — SEIU United Service Staff West — began the Justice for Janitors marketing campaign in 1990, a bottom-up motion that in Los Angeles was principally powered by the immigrant Latina girls who cleaned industrial workplace house for wages as little as $7 an hour.
After weeks of protests, police attacked these Latina employees in June of that 12 months in what grew to become referred to as the “Battle of Century Metropolis.” Two dozen employees have been injured however the union didn’t again down. Finally, it gained the contracts it was in search of, and equally as vital, it gained public assist.
Huerta joined USWW just a few years after that incident, rising the Justice for Janitors marketing campaign. The union was and has at all times been one powered by immigrant employees who noticed that collective energy was their greatest energy, and Huerta has led a long time of constructing that fact right into a sensible power. He’s, says Orr, an organizer who is aware of how one can carry individuals collectively.
To say he’s a beloved and revered chief in each the union and California normally is an understatement. You’ll be able to nonetheless discover his bio on the White Home web site, since he was honored as a “Champion of Change,” by President Obama. Inside hours of his arrest, political leaders throughout the state have been voicing assist.
“David Huerta is a revered chief, a patriot, and an advocate for working individuals. Nobody ought to ever be harmed for witnessing authorities motion,” Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on-line.
Maybe extra importantly, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, talking for her 15 million members, issued a press release.
Huerta “was doing what he has at all times accomplished, and what we do in unions: placing solidarity into observe and defending our fellow employees,” she mentioned. “The labor motion stands with David and we’ll proceed to demand justice for our union brother till he’s launched.”
Comparable statements got here from the Teamsters and different unions. Solidarity isn’t a buzzword to unions. It’s the bedrock of their energy. In arresting Huerta, that solidarity has been supercharged. Already, union members from throughout the state are planning to assemble Monday for Huerta’s arraignment in downtown Los Angeles.
In the meantime, Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica native and architect of Trump’s deportation plans, has mentioned the raids we’re seeing now are only the start, and that he wish to see 1000’s of arrests day-after-day, as a result of our immigrant communities are crammed with “each form of legal thug imaginable on planet earth.”
However in arresting Huerta, the battleground has been redrawn in methods we don’t totally but recognize. Little question, Miller could have his approach and the raids is not going to solely proceed, however enhance.
But in addition, the unions are usually not going to again down.
“Proper now, simply within the final 14 hours, labor unions are becoming a member of collectively from far and extensive, communities are reaching out in methods I’ve by no means seen,” Orr informed me. “One thing is totally different.”
Rosa Parks was only a lady on a bus, she identified, till she was one thing extra. George Floyd was simply one other Black man stopped by police. Till he was one thing extra.
Huerta is the one thing extra of those immigration raids — not as a result of he’s a union boss, however as a result of he’s a union organizer with ties to each individuals in energy and other people in worry.
The approaching months will present what occurs when these two teams resolve, collectively, that backing down shouldn’t be an choice.
