Wal-Mart Workers Need Your Help

The recent raids of 60 Wal-Mart Stores in 21 states by immigration officials once again draws attention to the fact that large U.S. companies continue to exploit the labor of undocumented workers. Unfortunately, those who paid the ultimate price are the workers themselves; immigrants targeted in “Operation Rollback” were rounded up and arrested as they finished their shifts just before dawn.
The immigrant workers arrested in the Wal-Mart raids performed janitorial services for the giant corporate chain. They now face deportation from the U.S. This means that more families will lose their breadwinners, more children will be separated from their parents, and more undocumented immigrants will be forced even deeper into the shadows.

Like millions of other immigrants employed in low-wage jobs around the country, these individuals were simply working hard at a difficult job, providing service and convenience to others.

Like Wal-Mart, we all rely enormously on immigrant labor. It bolsters our economy and contributes to national productivity and growth. Immigrant workers also fuel the U.S. economy as consumers. They buy food and clothes -- often at stores like Wal-Mart, pay rent and taxes, and create more jobs for others.

Real wages and working conditions continue to deteriorate, both inside and outside our national borders. Rounding up, arresting and deporting immigrant workers will not strengthen workplace protections, nor will it reduce the need for their labor. In fact, it is the threat of arrest and deportation that causes workers to remain silent about low pay for long hours of hard work and other labor violations that impact all workers, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

The single most effective way to reverse this disturbing decline in wages and working conditions, while meeting the labor needs our economy, is the adoption of an ongoing, broad-based legalization or earned citizenship program. Such a program would not only ease the crushing fear of deportation that currently prevents many undocumented immigrants from stepping forward to report violations of wage and hour laws or health and safety regulations, but would also recognize the important contributions that these individuals make to our economy and our society.

The government should cease the practice of raiding workplaces and halt the deportation of the Wal-Mart workers. Then we should all turn our attention to developing a meaningful legalization program that will enable these and other low-wage workers to come out of the shadows.

For more information, contact the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride at [email protected]