SWP Senate candidate calls for unity against ICE raids

Drop the Charges, Free All Those Detained! Stop the Raids! Legalization for All Immigrants Now!

All charges of identity theft and of using false Social Security cards against the 595 immigrant workers at Howard Industries Inc. in Laurel, Mississippi, should be dropped immediately.

With these words, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Georgia Senator Eleanor García commences a statement that accuses the management of Howard Industries Inc. of fomenting racial divisiveness to weaken the working class and prevent it from effective political organization:

The bosses at Howard Industries Inc. work hard to divide workers in the plant. They tell immigrant workers that Blacks are lazy, they tell Black and white workers that immigrants are stealing their jobs. Several of those arrested said that some of their coworkers applauded as they were forcibly taken out by the immigration cops.

Any divisions and discriminatory treatment that the bosses are successful in creating among workers weakens our class and our ability to fight effectively together against speedup, unsafe working conditions, and low wages. The bosses want to keep us from uniting together to fight to better our conditions on and off the job. As the economic crisis worsens and more native-born workers lose their homes, the message is “well, at least you’re lucky—you’re not an immigrant.”

In discussing the topic of the aggressive spying powers of the state over organized labor, “Black rights organizations” and working class political parties, García also notes that illegal entry and eavesdropping were used against the Cuban Five (IPR background here). She finally argues that the May Day immigrants’ marches of the last two years provided “fighting space” for the working class, and argues that a “fighting trade union movement” would be the product of workers on either side of the border coming together to fight for higher wages and better working conditions.