by Jeremy Leaming
SEIU, which represents millions of workers nationwide and more than 100,000 in Alabama, has lodged a complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO) of the United Nations urging it to press the federal government to move on immigration reform.
SEIU and its affiliate, the Southern Regional Joint Board of Workers United, state in their complaint before the U.N. that Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, H.B. 56, “denies fundamental civil rights to immigrants and minorities and impacts trade union activities between and among union members, inhibiting freedom of association ….”
In a press statement announcing the complaint, SEIU says, “Only federal legislative reform ca
n stop the proliferation of laws like Alabama’s H.B. 56 that penalize unauthorized immigrants who apply for jobs or work; fine anyone who transports or harbors an undocumented immigrant; and prevent courts from enforcing contracts that involve a person without legal status …. Such provisions jeopardize the ability of workers to form and join trade unions and to bargain collectively.”
SEIU’s complaint before the U.N. is available here.
Authors of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, which The New York Times has dubbed the harshest in the nation, are pushing some revisions to it that aides to the state’s governor claim will significantly improve its treatment of undocumented immigrants. (The federal government has challenged in court several provisions of the law, saying they interfere with the government’s effort to create one national law on immigration. In March, a federal appeals court blocked some of the law’s provisions.)
Brian Lyman, reporting for the Montgomery Advertiser, says the proposed changes to H.B. 56, sponsored by state Rep. Micky Hammon, “toughen some provisions while significantly scaling back others.”
For example, Lyman notes, a proposed revision would allegedly soften the law’s controversial section requiring public school officials to check and report on the immigration status of students. A proposed revision would require “state schools superintendent to file an annual report on the fiscal impact of undocumented” immigrants on the school system.
Ala. Gov. Robert Bentley, in a press statement, however, said the proposed revisions would not undercut the “essence of the law …. Anyone living and working in Alabama must be here legally.”
Civil rights and other public interest groups have argued that H.B. 56, and other harsh immigration laws, such as Arizona’s S.B. 1070, allow authorities to engage in racial profiling and discrimination against people based on how they look and speak. Those groups, moreover, point out that the individual state laws can create a confusing patchwork of laws that endanger constitutional freedoms.