Madison Immigrant News

Companeros y Companeras!

The UTI, or "Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes", is a recently born organization based in Madison WI. We started up in May 2006 with the intention of representing and expressing the interests of immigrant workers in the area. Although we are not a union, we are workers' class-based organization that attempts to politically organize the workers in our struggle for better conditions of life.

The UTI is based on the idea that the immigrant rights movement is above all a workers' movement, because in the final analysis, the question of documents and immediate, unconditional legalization for all is a class question. The massive wave of immigration itself is a class issue and a direct consequence of capitalism and imperialism. But not only is it a clear class issue, but the main actors, the people who bravely defeated HR4437, were above all immigrant workers. It was millions of immigrant workers who organized and participated in massive marches, boycotts, general strikes and developed a relatively independent movement from below, which was able to resist the back-lash of many traditional immigrant rights organizations, some of the Spanish-language media who boycotted the boycott, and some layers on the church who at a certain stage felt the movement was going too far. May Day 2006, was by all accounts, the point of no return of a movement with a clear working class character.

In our opinion, even the term "immigration reform" is misleading. We have been without papers for decades, and we have suffered under terrible anti-immigrant laws every year for at least the last eleven years. It was not the papers as a single issue, but the accumulated attacks, the growing awareness that nothing is really getting better, that the rate of exploitation is increasing - in simple terms, the lack of a future either in our countries or here.  This is what triggered once of the strongest and most massive workers' movements that this country has witnessed in decades.

These are concerns that affect not only immigrant workers, but all workers as a result of the ongoing offensive by the corporations and the government against our working and living conditions, all in the pursuit of maximum profits.

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) the corporate political and media representatives have been able to divide workers along ethnic and racial lines at a moment when all workers are suffering the same full-scale attacks. They are using a Divide and Conquer strategy that we must respond to with an across-the-board struggle led by a truly combative workers' leadership that is able to defy anti-labor legislation and ultimately, gain the upper hand in the struggle between big business and the workers.

Step by step, the UTI has managed to create an effective and combative organization from scratch, to bring together a solid team of clas-conscious immigrant workers, most of them undocumented. We have been able to connect with the broader labor movement, working with the South Central Federation of Labor (WI), union campaigns with Unite-HERE and SEIU Local 1, "Justice for Janitors",  the Workers' Center and Interfaith Coalition for Workers' Justice, as well as other campaigns such as a community struggle against police repression in White Water, WI.

As in almost every other country, politicians in the U.S. see themselves as high-up technocrats, and they are dedicated to defending the system that put them in power in the first place. They will not make any fundamental challenges to that system. It is only on the basis of mass pressure from below that serious changes in legislation are achieved. Reforms are never given out of the goodness of politician's hearts - they are the result of massive pressure from below and the threat that those in power could lose control over their system.

Those who defend the idea that the state and its institutions are "an imperfect but improvable system and body of laws" are at the very least missing history and reality. The state and its institutions may try to appear as an impartial referee in the constant struggle between workers and the oppressed against the capitalists who seek out ever greater profits. But in reality, the current state sides squarely with the interests of the capitalist minority. Our efforts to pressure the government must be directed against the state apparatus as a whole, not this or that party.  We simply cannot rely on any big business party to defend our interests.  We can rely only on our own class forces and organizations.

We solidarize with the many, many activists and organizations that want to move forward and develop a strategy for the movement. It is a common concern that the lack of a solid, national platform is delaying and weakening the movement, while at the same time the Democrats and Republicans are waiting for the right moment to pass some kind of compromise legislation, which would disorient and demoralize sectors of the movement.

We agree with many of the points Nativo makes: on the need for membership based organizations and the need to build centralized, democratic structures, instead of top-down ones. We must at all times base ourselves on the real needs and situation of our people, immigrant workers and the working class in general. We are a long ways from reviving and strengthening the ideas, traditions, methods and experience of the working class, and we have to start right now.

The division in the movement is a fact.  None of us, if we are serious about building a lasting and powerful movement, should be scared or disappointed. This is a necessary bridge that we have to cross together. Even in the most divergent positions we can find elements of unity, and this is the process that we have to go through: to openly and patiently discuss our different points of view, and build unity where we find common ground, and play an independent role when and where there is not agreement.

To sum up, la Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes resolves to support both conferences, and appeals to the movement to engage in a serious and sober debate on the main issues at hand. Above all, we must discuss what program and methods the movement will defend in order to develop its strategy and tactics. In our opinion, this can only be a working class program, strategy, tactics, and methods.

We welcome Nativo's document as a contribution toward this vital debate. We appeal to all our fellow activists and organizations to start clearly and openly expressing their political views on this issue.  We feel that this debate must be above all an exchange of political ideas based around concrete proposals for a platform of action, and not based on personal or power struggle intrigues.

Companeros y Companeras!

The UTI, or "Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes", is a recently born organization based in Madison WI. We started up in May 2006 with the intention of representing and expressing the interests of immigrant workers in the area. Although we are not a union, we are workers' class-based organization that attempts to politically organize the workers in our struggle for better conditions of life.

The UTI is based on the idea that the immigrant rights movement is above all a workers' movement, because in the final analysis, the question of documents and immediate, unconditional legalization for all is a class question. The massive wave of immigration itself is a class issue and a direct consequence of capitalism and imperialism. But not only is it a clear class issue, but the main actors, the people who bravely defeated HR4437, were above all immigrant workers. It was millions of immigrant workers who organized and participated in massive marches, boycotts, general strikes and developed a relatively independent movement from below, which was able to resist the back-lash of many traditional immigrant rights organizations, some of the Spanish-language media who boycotted the boycott, and some layers on the church who at a certain stage felt the movement was going too far. May Day 2006, was by all accounts, the point of no return of a movement with a clear working class character.

In our opinion, even the term "immigration reform" is misleading. We have been without papers for decades, and we have suffered under terrible anti-immigrant laws every year for at least the last eleven years. It was not the papers as a single issue, but the accumulated attacks, the growing awareness that nothing is really getting better, that the rate of exploitation is increasing - in simple terms, the lack of a future either in our countries or here.  This is what triggered once of the strongest and most massive workers' movements that this country has witnessed in decades.

These are concerns that affect not only immigrant workers, but all workers as a result of the ongoing offensive by the corporations and the government against our working and living conditions, all in the pursuit of maximum profits.

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) the corporate political and media representatives have been able to divide workers along ethnic and racial lines at a moment when all workers are suffering the same full-scale attacks. They are using a Divide and Conquer strategy that we must respond to with an across-the-board struggle led by a truly combative workers' leadership that is able to defy anti-labor legislation and ultimately, gain the upper hand in the struggle between big business and the workers.

Step by step, the UTI has managed to create an effective and combative organization from scratch, to bring together a solid team of clas-conscious immigrant workers, most of them undocumented. We have been able to connect with the broader labor movement, working with the South Central Federation of Labor (WI), union campaigns with Unite-HERE and SEIU Local 1, "Justice for Janitors",  the Workers' Center and Interfaith Coalition for Workers' Justice, as well as other campaigns such as a community struggle against police repression in White Water, WI.

As in almost every other country, politicians in the U.S. see themselves as high-up technocrats, and they are dedicated to defending the system that put them in power in the first place. They will not make any fundamental challenges to that system. It is only on the basis of mass pressure from below that serious changes in legislation are achieved. Reforms are never given out of the goodness of politician's hearts - they are the result of massive pressure from below and the threat that those in power could lose control over their system.

Those who defend the idea that the state and its institutions are "an imperfect but improvable system and body of laws" are at the very least missing history and reality. The state and its institutions may try to appear as an impartial referee in the constant struggle between workers and the oppressed against the capitalists who seek out ever greater profits. But in reality, the current state sides squarely with the interests of the capitalist minority. Our efforts to pressure the government must be directed against the state apparatus as a whole, not this or that party.  We simply cannot rely on any big business party to defend our interests.  We can rely only on our own class forces and organizations.

We solidarize with the many, many activists and organizations that want to move forward and develop a strategy for the movement. It is a common concern that the lack of a solid, national platform is delaying and weakening the movement, while at the same time the Democrats and Republicans are waiting for the right moment to pass some kind of compromise legislation, which would disorient and demoralize sectors of the movement.

We agree with many of the points Nativo makes: on the need for membership based organizations and the need to build centralized, democratic structures, instead of top-down ones. We must at all times base ourselves on the real needs and situation of our people, immigrant workers and the working class in general. We are a long ways from reviving and strengthening the ideas, traditions, methods and experience of the working class, and we have to start right now.

The division in the movement is a fact.  None of us, if we are serious about building a lasting and powerful movement, should be scared or disappointed. This is a necessary bridge that we have to cross together. Even in the most divergent positions we can find elements of unity, and this is the process that we have to go through: to openly and patiently discuss our different points of view, and build unity where we find common ground, and play an independent role when and where there is not agreement.

To sum up, la Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes resolves to support both conferences, and appeals to the movement to engage in a serious and sober debate on the main issues at hand. Above all, we must discuss what program and methods the movement will defend in order to develop its strategy and tactics. In our opinion, this can only be a working class program, strategy, tactics, and methods.

We welcome Nativo's document as a contribution toward this vital debate. We appeal to all our fellow activists and organizations to start clearly and openly expressing their political views on this issue.  We feel that this debate must be above all an exchange of political ideas based around concrete proposals for a platform of action, and not based on personal or power struggle intrigues.