Will the Next Labor Movement Come from the South?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23745-will-the-next-labor-movement-come-from-the-south

Saturday, 17 May 2014 09:17
By Amy B Dean, Truthout | Interview



Saket Soni, Director, National Guestworker Alliance (Image: via Jobs with Justice / Flickr)


Corporate America - especially in the American South - doesn't seem to know the proper way to treat a guest. Guest workers have long been one of the most easily exploited segments of the American workforce. Employers frequently take advantage of their legal vulnerabilities to ignore labor laws, pay subminimum wage and threaten them with physical abuse, all of which American citizens are better equipped to resist. Whole sectors of the American economy - especially agriculture - have long depended on this underground labor market and the ease with which employers can dominate it.

But in recent years, guest workers have been bringing attention to their plight and winning some small victories. One of the leaders of that movement is Saket Soni, executive director of the National Guestworker Alliance and the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice. From his base in the Deep South, perhaps the United States' most worker-unfriendly region, he has helped organize workers across the Gulf Coast.

In 2012, Soni worked with a group of guest workers at a crawfish processing plan named CJ's Seafood, where employees were locked in, forced to work nearly around the clock and threatened with violence when they protested. The Guestworkers Alliance and the CJ's employees were able to put pressure on CJ's Seafood's chief customers: Walmart and the Walmart-owned Sam's Club. The employees went on strike, fasted and protested outside the homes of Walmart board members. They raised enough attention that The New York Times endorsed their cause and many other workers from across the Walmart supply chain joined their efforts. This case is a model for the kind of organizing Soni is dedicated to: confronting the complexities of the American labor market with the power of collective action.

Amy B. Dean spoke with Soni about his ongoing campaigns with guestworkers and about the challenges of organizing the South.

FULL story at link.

[Overseas]

1. K&R. Yes please!