Unions in California are different from unions elsewhere.
More than any state in our troubled country, their ranks are filled with people of color and immigrants. The union has always been closely linked to civil rights struggles, but that has become even more pronounced since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
In the subsequent quest for the soul of the nation, the union was forced to do a bit of its own. But if that conversation largely collapsed for the public under the pressure of Trump’s right-wing rage, it settled in the union to a much greater extent.
So, Friday’s arrest of SEIU-USWW and SEIU California president David Huerta by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have a major impact in the coming months as deportations continue.
“They woke us up,” Tia Oh told me on Saturday morning. She is the executive director of the 700,000 powerful service employees international union with which Huerta participates, and is the first African American and Latina to lead the organization.
“And I think they certainly awakened people all over the country in California. People are ready to take action,” she added. “I’ve never seen it in a long time. I don’t know I’ve seen it before. Yes, it will lead to actions that I believe are historical.”
The union has expressed its disapproval of mass deportation since the MAGA threat first appeared, but their power is not fully empowered against them, and instead has been a bit of awaited.
Well, we’ve seen it. We have seen unidentified masked men round out immigrants across the country and ship to life in prisons in torture foreign prisons. We saw a 9-year-old Southern California boy left his father and was taken into custody for deportation. And on Friday across Los Angeles, we saw the anonymous military style power of federal agents in what appears to be a haphazard and intentionally cruel way of doing neighbours, family and friends.
And for those who saw the video of Fuerta’s arrest, we saw a middle-aged Latino man roughly shoved by the authorities in riot gear and appearing to hit his head on the curb until he fell backwards. Fuerta, according to a television interview with Mayor Karen Bass, also said pepper spray. He was then taken to hospital for treatment, where he was later taken into custody, where he remained until Monday’s arrest.
Our atty. Bill Essayli told social media: “When a federal agent was running a legal judicial warrant at work this morning at the workplace, he was arrested for deliberately obstructing their access by blocking their vehicles. I’ll put their duty to it.”
For over 20 years, I have covered violent, non-violent protests. At one of the first such events I featured, I saw Bill Camp, the iconic union leader, and sat in the middle of the road wearing a Santa suit and refused to move. Police arrested him. But they managed to do it without violence and without camp resistance. This is how unions have good trouble – without fear, without violence.
Fuerta understands the rules and power of protest that are more peaceful than most. The union where he is the president – SEIU United Service Workers West launched Justice for Junitors Campaign in 1990. This launched a bottom-up movement in Los Angeles, driven primarily by immigrant Latinx women who cleaned commercial office spaces for a low wage of as much as $7 an hour.
After weeks of protest, police attacked a Latina worker that June that year, what became known as the “Battle of Century City.” Twenty workers were injured, but the union did not retreat. Ultimately, it won the contract it was sought and, just as important, got public support.
Huerta joined USWW a few years after that incident and grew the Justice for Junitors campaign. Unions are constantly powered by migrant workers who saw collective power as their highest power, and Fuerta has led the truth into practical power for decades. He says Orr, an organizer who knows how to connect people.
To say he is a beloved, respected leader in both union and California is generally an understatement. He was recognized as the “Champion of Change” by President Obama, so you can still find his bio on the White House website. Within hours of his arrest, political leaders across the state had expressed support.
“David Fuerta is a respected leader, patriot and advocate for workers. No one should do anything harm to witness the actions of the government,” Gov. Gavin Newsom posted online.
Perhaps more importantly, AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler spoke and issued a statement for the 15 million members.
“We did what he’s always done, and what we do in the union: put solidarity in practice and defend our fellow workers,” she said. “The labor movement is standing with David and we will continue to demand justice from our Union brothers until he is released.”
Similar statements came from Teamsters and other unions. Solidarity is not a buzzword for unions. It is the bedrock of their power. The arrest of Fuerta is overcharged. Already, union members across the state are planning to gather on Monday for Fuerta’s arrest in downtown Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, a Santa Monica native and architect of Trump’s deportation plan, says that the attacks we’re looking at are just the beginning, and that the immigrant community wants to see thousands of arrests every day, as they are “full of the thugs of every criminal you can imagine on planet Earth.”
However, when arresting Fuerta, the battlefield is still being redrawn in a way that is not entirely grateful. Without a doubt, Miller will have his way, and the raid will not only continue, but increase.
However, the union is not planning to retreat.
“Now, in the last 14 hours, unions have joined us together from afar, so the community is reaching out in ways I’ve never seen,” Orr told me. “Something’s different.”
Rosa Parks was just a woman on the bus, she pointed out until something more. George Floyd was another black man who stopped by the police. Until he becomes something more.
Huerta is more than that of these migrant raids. Not because he is the boss of the union, but because he is the union organizer with connections between people in power and people in fear.
The coming months will show what will happen when these two groups together decide that backdown is not an option.
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