Organized labor strongly supports the right to naturalize. The separation of the right to a job and the right to vote only promises to promote division among working people, create a two-tiered society, and reduce working conditions for all. As the percentage of California's population which was born outside the U.S. rises, the importance of the voting power of new citizens has grown. New citizen voters have already provided the margin of defeat for some the state's most anti-labor politicians and ballot initiatives. California demographics are undergoing a fundamental change.
People of color are now a majority of the state's population.
A political alliance between California's labor movement and its immigrant and minority communities can provide the base for ending the era of right-wing initiatives and the politicians who have sought to profit by them. That alliance can make a basic progressive change in our state's political direction, benefiting all of our working population. In the political work of California's unions, we need to campaign jointly on the issues that will bring together our unions and communities.