<nettime> Victory for American "Sans Papiers"

[florian schneider <fls@ibu.de>]

National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC)
110 Hamstead  Road
Birmingham B20 2QS
Phone: 0121-554-6947  Fax:  0870-055-4570
E-mail ncadc@ncadc.demon.co.uk
Web site:  http://www.ncadc.demon.co.uk/

Victory for American "Sans Papiers"

"Illegal" hotel workers  win and lose

    The following article reports on the victory of a group of 
immigrant  workers whose efforts to unionise were undermined when 
their employer fired them and decided to "tip off" the Immigration 
and Nationality Service INS in America.
   The workers received  $72,000 in compensatory damages in a 
settlement between the U.S. Equal  Employment Opportunity Commission 
(EEOC) and the operators of the Holiday Inn Express in downtown 
Minneapolis USA.

    Though still facing deportation the "Sans Papiers" victory aids 
secret work force.

    The newest champions of organized labour giggle a lot. They also 
blush mightily at the newfound attention and the prospects of 
travelling to Chicago soon to appear on a popular Spanish TV morning 
talk show broadcast worldwide.

    ``I think its `Despierta America (Wake Up, America), Reyna Albino, 
24, says almost apologetically before hiding her face in her hands. 
They hear CNN might come calling.

    Reyna and her three cousins -- sisters Estela, Evertina and Rosa 
Albino -- might seem to some like unlikely American heroines. They 
are undocumented workers (Sans Papiers). They don't speak English. 
They clean toilets and hotel rooms at wages that would insult most 
American adults. They represent the ``back-of-the-house workers -- 
the open-secret work force of chambermaids, kitchen cooks and 
waterboys who for generations have sustained the USAs restaurant and 
hotel service industry.

    On Thursday 8th January 2000, the four women and five of their 
former co-workers received $72,000 in compensatory damages in a 
settlement between the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 
(EEOC) and the operators of the Holiday Inn Express in downtown 
Minneapolis. The hotel had fired the workers and reported them to the 
Immigration and Naturalisation Service shortly after the workers 
voted to form a union and begin contract negotiations.

    The settlement is the first of its kind since agency officials 
pledged to give undocumented workers more protections against 
workplace abuses. Local employment lawyers believe the settlement 
will embolden steps to protect such workers nationwide while forcing 
employers to exert more care in who they hire.

     The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) got involved 
after Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 17 filed a complaint 
accusing the hotel of retaliating against the workers for organising. 
The hotel, apparently with a straight face, denied this and 
maintained the settlement was reached because of fears that 
litigation would be costly and drag on for years.

    Evertina said she has no doubts about the hotel's whistle-blowing 
motives. ``When they called reunion meetings during the unionisation 
campaign, they were very nice to us, she recalled as she and the 
others sat in a room at Holy Rosary Church in South Minneapolis. 
``After the vote, they looked angry. They didn't even want to talk to 
us.

     Labour laws prohibit employers from retaliating against workers 
who attempt to unionise. But undocumented workers, until this week, 
were not included.

      The hotel claims that they were tipped to the undocumented 
workers and that the timing was merely a coincidence. But the local 
INS (Immigration and Nationality Service) district chief, Curtis 
Aljets, admitted that the hotel tipped his office to the workers and 
that he was not aware union bargaining activity was going on at the 
time of the call.

     `If we had to do it all over again, we probably wouldn't do it, 
he told the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune.

     The Albino sisters come from a family of 15 brothers and sisters 
who live on a small farm in Guerrero, an impoverished state in 
Mexico. They said they came to this country five years ago for the 
same reasons immigrants have been coming here for centuries: a better 
job, a better life, the promise of America.

    They said they first worked at a unionised hotel in downtown 
Minneapolis, where they got breaks and received an eight-hour daily 
shift for cleaning an average of 16 rooms each.

    All except Rosa returned to Mexico, but they returned about two 
years ago as conditions there worsened. Rosa, who had a job at the 
Holiday Inn Express, got them to apply. But Estela said conditions 
were nowhere near those of their previous hotel employer.

    ``We didn't get breaks, and we were let go after four or five 
hours, she said. ``And they suspected (about our illegal status). 
They used to joke that ` ``La Migra is here. We didn't fully realize 
that they would report us because we wanted to have a union.

     They were jailed for six days and released on bail posted by the 
church. A fund-raiser for the ``Holiday Inn Express Nine raised 
$13,000 to defray unemployment, housing and legal costs while they 
await deportation hearings, which can take months. The settlement may 
have put in their pockets what will be a small fortune back home, but 
it has no effect on their likely deportation.

     They know their plight may help others in the secret work force 
we wink at daily.

      They would do it all over again but agreed that they would trade 
the settlement money for the chance to remain here and work.

     ``We want to work hard and make a life here  Evertina said. ``But 
if they tell us that we have to go back, then thats what we will have 
to do.


Source:  National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR)

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