Immigrants helping U.S. labor unions stage a comeback...?

hey, that would not only be nice, it would be poetic justice for nutjobs like tom tancredo...

As the U.S. Congress contemplates a bill that would build fences along nearly 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border to keep foreigners out, recent immigrants -- many of whom crossed that same border -- are pumping fresh blood into an anemic U.S. labour movement.

In late November, for example, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced that 4,700 janitors who clean more than 60 percent of the office space in Houston, Texas had joined the union and would begin bargaining with their employers for a contract.

Houston is the latest in a string of campaigns known as Janitors For Justice that have unionised 225,000 janitors in 29 cities over the past two decades, according to the SEIU.

In this and many other cities, the building-maintenance workers and union organisers are mostly recently arrived immigrants, many from Mexico and Central America.

The Houston victory was particularly significant because workers in Texas and across the U.S. South are less unionised than elsewhere in the country.

Houston janitors are not covered by health insurance, and most work part-time at an hourly base rate of 5.25 dollars, just 10 cents above the federal minimum wage.

"Everybody in our division of SEIU sent organisers and resources to help in Houston," said Sergio Salinas, president of Local 6 in Seattle, "so it was a combined national effort." This campaign, Salinas believes, has "historical importance" as a major inroad by unions into the South.

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...!!!

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