The intersections of the economic and cultural in U.S. labor's pro-migrant politics.

• Date: 22 December 2008
• Author: Basok, Tanya
• Published date: 22 December 2008
• Author: Basok, Tanya

THE GLOBAL EXPANSION OF CAPITAL HAS BEEN ACCOMPANIED BY THE MOVEMENT of transnational labor of an unprecedented scale (Robinson, 2006). The worldwide labor migration has profoundly challenged the way policymakers, business representatives, and social activists think about the relationship between citizenship and human rights. Using the human rights framework, many social activists have advocated for the freedom of movement across national borders and the right of noncitizens--such as labor migrants--to claim economic and social rights in host societies. Some activists have also called for status regularization programs. Trade unions have recently joined forces with other grass-roots organizations in their efforts to advance the rights of migrants. This activism stands in contrast to the protectionism and hostility toward immigrants that characterized union attitudes in earlier decades. Some researchers have reflected on this transformation (see Avci and McDonald, 2000; Haus, 1999; Nissen and Grenier, 2001a and b; Renault, 2004a; Watts, 1998a and b; Wells, 2000; and Wets, 2000). For the most part, explanations of new unions' political platforms on immigration emphasize economic class interests of unions in host countries. In particular, it has been suggested that unions have supported various status regularization and moderate immigration programs in order to boost union membership and protect national labor standards from the downward pressure resulting from the employment of undocumented migrants (Avci and McDonald, 2000; Haus, 1999; Watts, 1998a and b). However, by overemphasizing the importance of economic explanations, these studies leave out of the discussion the role of culture and identities in shaping today's class politics. In this article, I attempt to address this limitation. I analyze migrant rights activism by organized labor in the United States and argue that, similar to other struggles for social justice (Young, 1997; Fraser, 1998; Buechler, 2000), this advocacy should be seen as a combination of economic goals and cultural expressions.

First, I discuss how economic interests--the need to recruit new union members, particularly among migrants, and to protect labor standards--shape the new labor platform on immigration policies in the U.S. Then I draw attention to the importance of cultural explanations, focusing on values, identities, and sentiments. I explore social values associated with social movement unionism and its impact on pro-migrant advocacy. Furthermore, recognizing that today's labor organizers and activists, including those holding leadership positions within unions, are first, second, or third-generation migrants, I argue that their memories of migration (their own or those shared by their family members) constitute an important framework of meaning that shapes their views and attitudes toward present-day migrants and consequently, the attitudes of the unions they represent. These memories of migration might include stories of deprivation, racism, marginalization, rejection, and exploitation. I argue that identities forged through such memories of migration evoke empathy toward the plight of current-day migrants and stimulate activism on migrant rights.

The article is built on research carried out between 2003 and 2006 that examined public statements on migrant workers rights published in printed and electronic media and made by labor activists as well as representatives of grass-roots organizations. (1) Close to 2,000 pages of articles were assembled and analyzed. The main issues of interest were: specific demands, the "framing" of migrants rights in relation to such notions as "human rights," "international labor solidarity," "universal rights," "citizenship" or other rights-related frames, and the types of strategies and tactics employed. Attention was also paid to the leaders and their reasons for engaging in this type of activism.

In addition, interviews were conducted with representatives of 27 labor and 11 grass-roots organizations (Canadians among them are not analyzed in this article). The interviews conducted for this study were meant to supplement the information disseminated in the media. Most study participants were contacted because their names had appeared in the media as spokespeople for the organizations they represented. We were not interested in the personal views of study participants, but in the social values and strategies used in advocacy for migrants by their organizations. In many respects, information presented in the interviews by study participants coincided with the official views stated on their organizations' web pages, newsletters, or in printed media. At the same time, the interviews provided additional insights on issues of particular interest to this study.

Originally, the interview schedule, based on open-ended questions, did not include a question on personal reasons for engaging in pro-migrant activism. However, some study participants volunteered this information and drew my attention to the importance of identities and personal sentiments in their commitment to advocacy on behalf of migrants. I decided to explore this issue further. Interviews conducted at a later stage included this question. I also reanalyzed the collected media documents with this question in mind.

Nonresident migrants are of two types: undocumented workers and those working on a temporary employment authorization visa. Undocumented migrants might be those who have entered the country illegally, have overstayed their visitors' visas, or have claimed and been denied refugee status. In the United States, the undocumented population was estimated to be 11 million in 2006. The list of unions supporting migrant workers is extensive. It includes UFCW International, Laborer's International Union of North America (LIUNA), United Farm Workers (UFW), the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees' union (HERE), and the Union of Needle-trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!) (the last two merged into UNITE HERE! in 2004). Recently, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) have also supported migrant rights.

Cultural Dimensions in Social Justice Activism

Among students of collective action, the 1970s mark a significant turn away from political and economic explanations of social movements toward a recognition that cultural dimensions explain why these movements arise as well as their nature and aims. The rise of cultural explanations is associated with two theoretical approaches to collective action: the new social movements theory and social constructionism.

Marxist analyses of class relations and visions of class struggles came under serious critique in the 1970s and the decades that followed. Reflecting on the decline of trade unionism and the rise of "new social movements," many scholars argued that the newly emerging "identity politics," expressed through the Black liberation, feminist, indigenous rights, and the gay and lesbian liberation movements, reflected current struggles for social justice (Cohen, 1985; Canel, 1992). Emphasizing the fluidity and multiplicity of identities in late modernity, Melucci (1996) linked collective action to the ability of people to construct their identities and the production of meaning in collective action through interaction and communication between actors. He also emphasized that the social construction of collective identity was an essential component, if not the aim, of the "new social movements" (see also Alvarez and Escobar, 1992; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Contributing to the "cultural turn" in the theories of social justice and social movement, Iris Young (1990) equated liberation in culturally plural societies with positive self-definitions of group difference or the "politics of difference," as she called it. In her path-breaking book, Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), Young called for a principle of group representation in democratic publics and for group-differentiated policies. As I will argue below, the recognition of cultural differences within labor is in part responsible for the pro-migrant campaigns led by union leaders in the United States.

At the same time, as a reaction to the limitations of resource mobilization theory, then dominant among U.S. scholars of social movement, social constructionists drew attention to the importance of "framing" in social activism. With its three components (diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational), framing in the social movements literature refers to the ways social actors assign meaning to their action as they formulate grievances and strategies for change, and motivate people to take action (Benford, 1993). Social constructionists have advanced the notion of "frame alignment" to capture the process though which social movement leaders align collective action frames with belief systems of potential movement members, and "frame lifting" to refer to the process through which leaders shape action to match institutionally imbedded interpretations (Morris, 2004: 239). Social constructionists have also underlined the importance of master frames, or broad ideological orientations that address issues of oppression and call for social justice (Snow and Benford, 1992). Below I will discuss how master narratives of "global justice" and "human rights" are invoked in pro-migrant, union-led advocacy in the United States.

Another important contribution of social constructionists is a revival of interest in emotions, which resource mobilization theorists marginalized previously with their emphasis on a "rational" actor. Goodwin and Jasper (2004: 25) insist that collective identity, frames, as well as social networks and "mobilizing structures" are greatly influenced by the emotions of the actors involved in collective action. Various researchers have emphasized the...