ICE arrested a California union leader. Does Trump understand what that means?
Trade unions in California are different from other places.
More than any state in our problematic country, their ranks are full of color and immigrant people. Although the unions have always been closely attached to the struggles of civil rights, it has become more evident since the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.
In the search for the next national soul, Unions had to do a little their own. However, in cases where this speech was greatly disrupted for the general society under the pressure of President Trump’s right-wing anger, it has been kept in a much greater extent in trade unions-sometimes younger leadership and certainty and absolutely rank and file.
So the arrest David Huerta, Seıu-Usww and President of Seıu CaliforniaMigration and customs sanction by the US on Friday will have a major impact on the coming months as the deportation continues.
“They woke us up, Tia Tia Orr said to me on Saturday morning. The General Manager of International Union California is the first Afro-American and Latina to lead the organization.
“And I think they certainly woke people around the country in California, and people are ready to take action,” he added. “I haven’t seen this for a long time.
While the trade unions expressed their approval of mass deportation since the first time the threat of the maga emerged, trade unions could be ‘, instead they were taking some waiting and vision approach.
People, we saw. We have seen that unidentified masked men have rounded immigrants throughout the country and sent them to life sentences in unfair foreign prisons; We watched 9 -year -old South California Boy He left his father and was detained for deportation; And on Friday, in Los Angeles, we have seen that an anonymous military power of federal agents sweeps our neighbors, family members and friends randomly and intentionally.
And for those who have He watched the video of Huerta’s arrest, In a plaid button, we saw that a middle -aged Latino man was roughly pushed by the authorities in the rebellion equipment until it fell back and seems to hit his head on the sidewalk. According to a television interview with Mayor Karen Bass, Huerta sprayed pepper. Then he was hospitalized for treatment, then he was detained, where he stayed here until Monday.
We Atty. Bill Essayli wrote on social media “Federal agents were conducting a legal order at a La construction site this morning, when David Huerta had deliberately blocking their vehicles by blocking their vehicles. He was arrested to intervene in the Federal civil servants: I don’t care if you block Federal agents, you won’t do with usurers or wardrobes.
For more than twenty years, I have discussed violent and non -violent protests. I watched an iconic union leader in one of the first events I covered, Invoice campSit in the middle of the road in trademark suspensions and refuse to move. The police arrested him. But they managed to do this without violence and without CAMP’s resistance. Trade unions cause a good problem without fear or violence.
Huerta understands peaceful protest rules and power better than most. The union-Seiu United Service employees began justice in West-1990 in Los Angeles, mostly for the authorized campaign supported by immigrant Latina women, who cleaned the commercial office area for low wages of up to $ 7 o’clock.
After the weeks that lasted, the police attacked Latina workers known as “Century Battle of City in that year in June of that year. Two dozen workers were injured, but the union was not withdrawn. Eventually, he won the contracts he sought and won the equally important public support.
Huerta joined USWW a few years after this incident and increased the Justice Campaign for the authority. The union was strengthened by immigrant workers who saw that collective power was the best power, and Huerta has always transformed this truth into practical power for decades. Orr, an organizer who knows how to bring people together.
It is an inadequacy to say that he is a beloved and respected leader both together and in California. You can still find it Biography on the White House websiteSince he was honored by President Obama as the “Champion Champion of Change .. Within a few hours of arrest, political leaders in the state supported.
“David Huerta is a respected leader, a patriotic and an advocate for working people. Nobody should be harmed to witness the government action,” Gov. Gavin Newsom released online.
Perhaps more importantly, Speaking for 15 million members, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuller made a statement.
Huerta said, “He was always doing what he did and what we did in the unions: putting solidarity into practice and defending our colleagues.” “The workers’ movement stands with David and we will continue to demand justice for our union brother until it is released.”
Similar expressions came from Teamsters and other unions. Solidarity is not a term for trade unions. The basis of their powers. While arresting Huerta, this solidarity was superfable. Already, union members throughout the state are planning to meet Huerta on Monday to arrange Huerta in the city center of Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, the architect of Santa Monica native and Trump’s deportation plans, said that now the raids we see are just the beginning and wanted to see thousands of arrests. Every dayBecause our immigrant communities are full of giriş all kinds of criminal bandits that you can imagine on the planet of Earth ”.
However, while arresting Huerta, the battlefield was redrawn as we have not yet fully appreciated. Undoubtedly, the Miller will have the path and raids will only continue, and at the same time will increase.
But at the same time unions will not retreat.
“Currently, in the last 14 hours, workers’ trade unions come together in a distant and extensive way, and communities lie in the way I have never seen,” he said. “Something is different.”
Rosa Parks was just a woman on the bus, orr pointed out until she had something more. George Floyd was another black man stopped by the police. Until more.
Huerta is more than immigrant raids – not because it is a union boss, but because it is a union organizer with both ruling people and people with fear.
The next months will show what will happen when these two groups together decide that withdrawal is not an option.
