For many years, that argument was far from the mainstream. But increased union interest in organizing generally, AND the growing numbers of immigrant labor activists and leaders, finally changed the balance of forces. Two years ago, a group of union and community organizers involved in campaigns among immigrant workers in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Labor Immigrant Organizers Network. It was adopted in labor councils throughout the country, and support crested at the national convention in Los Angeles. Last February, the AFL-CIO executive council adopted its own resolution, calling for a new legalization program for the undocumented and the repeal of sanctions.
Teamsters support for general amnesty is less clear.
And while no union openly opposes it, some don't see it as important. Other labor activists go beyond the resolution. Opposition to guestworker schemes historically stems not just from a desire to prevent an oversupply of labor, and therefore falling wages, but also from the bracero program's own record. Millions of Mexicans were recruited as braceros by U.S. growers from 1942 to 1964. Activists like Ernesto Galarza and Cesar Chavez demonstrated that while they had labor rights on paper, they couldn't exercise them.